A Young Woman's Political Record
by jacobk
Summary: With the war over and her military career in shambles, Tanya von Degurechaff has to forge a new path for herself. Fortunately, she finds an opportunity to get involved in the political scene. A safe, easy job has never been closer at hand. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

_AN: If you aren't familiar with Youjo Senki (The Saga of Tanya the Evil) I would highly recommend checking it out. The anime is available for free on crunchyroll and the light novel is reasonably priced on amazon. Both are very good. If you want a summary you can check out the wiki. If you want an extremely brief summary so you can get on with this story I'd go with this: loli isekai Flashman._

 _AN2: I'm mixing manga, anime, and LN canon together a little bit based on what I like. Anything past the current translations (anime season one, LN volume 2, manga 30) is only provisionally canon. For the purposes of this fic not!Germany lost not!WWI after getting dogpiled by everybody but not!Russia._

 _AN3: This fic was inspired by The Leader by lord of the land of fire, but aims for a very different feel. Most notably I'll be going for a more canon flavor Tanya instead of broken-by-war Tanya._

ooOoo

Eight years was a long time.

Eight years was time enough for an Empire to fight off an invasion, to win battle after battle against enemy after enemy, and to lose a war under the unrelenting pressure from all the world. Eight years was time enough for a young girl to go through officer training, serve with distinction, graduate from war college, command a battalion in countless battles, and then be discharged without a pfennig to her name.

In eight years, the orphanage hadn't changed at all. When I was a child, it had to scrimp and save to scrape together enough food to satisfy the gaggle of children under its care. Through the deprivations of war time they had to scrimp and save just to get by. Now, as the nation shuddered under the crushing pressure of the peace terms imposed on the Empire, the nuns no doubt intended to scrimp and save and do their best to feed the latest batch of orphans.

I had never expected to see this place again. Between my magical talent and my knack for managing bureaucratic rules I thought a successful military career was in the bag. I had every intention of rising through the ranks and securing a cushy posting near military headquarters. Government provided housing, a guaranteed salary, and, in due time, a government pension would all be mine.

It didn't work out quite the way that I planned. Well, I did rise through the ranks. And while the government provided housing was often a tent near the front rather than an apartment in the capital, I never did have to worry about paying rent. The problem was with the salary and the pension. By the end of the war the Empire was paying us in scrip rather than cash. It spent well enough on the front, but once the war ended all of the demand vanished overnight. My savings from the previous years of service had been deposited in a bank that had had all of its assets seized by the invading forces. As for the pension, well, the newfound Republic of Germania refused to take on most of the debts incurred by the Empire.

I had done everything right to rise to the top of the organization. Unfortunately, the organization had come crashing down around my ears. I was in the same position as a salaryman who put decades of blood, sweat and tears into securing a corner office just in time for my company to declare bankruptcy and disappear.

The Imperial military still existed. Sort of. Under the draconian provisions of the Treaty of Triano the Republic of Germania had a hard limit on the size of its army and the number of tanks, airplanes, and artillery pieces it could field. When it came to aerial mages, the permitted number was zero. Not only that, but the military was not allowed to employ any individual who had served as an aerial mage in the past. Nor was any other branch of the government allowed to hire such a person.

Major Tanya von Degurechaff. Only living recipient of the Silver Wings Assault Badge. Youngest graduate of the Imperial War College. Highest confirmed kill count of any aerial mage in the Great War.

With all of that and ten marks I could buy a loaf of bread. No, actually, ten marks was the old price. It's fifteen marks now. The idiotic fiscal policies of the new government are already starting to bear their poisonous fruit. That's nothing to do with me, though. I can only hope that some day the nation's economists will figure out that printing enough money to buy foreign currency at any price will lead to unsustainable levels of inflation.

Now I was just stalling. Procrastination was beneath the dignity of an Imperial soldier or a salaryman. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and knocked on the door. It didn't take long before the door opened to reveal a familiar face, albeit a face with more worry lines than I remembered. Perhaps the orphanage hadn't been as untouched by the war as I had thought.

"Sister Margaret. It has been a while."

She took a moment to look me up and down. I knew exactly what she was seeing. A girl, seventeen years old but with the appearance of a tween, barely cracking five feet in height. Messy blonde hair hanging down to her shoulders in compliance with military regulations. A jacket and pants combination that was tailored to military specifications but with all unit and rank insignia removed. A duffel bag held in one hand the only sign of luggage.

It took longer than I had expected, but eventually recognition flashed in her eyes. "Major Degurechaff!"

"Just Tanya, now," I said, shaking my head, before explaining my dismissal from the military.

The flash of disappointment that crossed her face was unmistakable. I could hardly blame her. A moment ago she thought that the orphanage could boast of a distinguished alumni, and now she'd discovered that what should have been a pillar of support was as destitute as any of her charges.

"To think that such a thing could happen," she said. "And you're here, now..."

"This is a haven for underage children, is it not?" I said, putting on my most professional smile. "I don't turn eighteen for another few months."

I could see her wince as I made my request. It was soon followed by a practiced expression of sympathy as she prepared to turn me down. Hardly unexpected. The orphanage was not flush with cash at the best of times. Adding a teenager would stress their finances without any corresponding benefit flowing back to them, as I was unlikely to be adopted by a well off family. I couldn't expect them to agree to such an unequal exchange. I pressed on, intent on making my pitch before she could give me a final rejection.

"I can help out with whatever needs doing," I said. "I had to turn in my computation orb but I can still do little bits of magic like body reinforcement. I'm stronger than I look."

The famous White Silver, throwing away her dignity? I preferred to think of it as saying what I needed in order to make a sale. Besides, while a reputation was a valuable thing, it wasn't worth much to someone freezing to death by the side of a road. Some day I would get my career back on track and work on spitting in the eye of Being X. Before that, though, I needed to make sure I survived the coming winter.

Sister Margaret visibly bit back the first thing she was going to say, then took a moment to study my expression before she spoke. "Of course you can stay with us. Come with me and I'll get you sorted out."

I smiled as I followed her inside. Let Being X set the whole world against me. I was never one to just curl up and die because it would be convenient for somebody else.

ooOoo

A week later I found myself staring with some frustration at a tree stump.

I was in the process of clearing a field in order to expand the space the orphanage could use to plant vegetables. Besides proving my own usefulness, I expected the field to prove quite practical if the country continued along its current path towards hyperinflation. I'd already moved all of the rocks scattered through the field with a shovel and a healthy application of reinforcing magic.

Body reinforcement and reflex enhancement were the foundation of a competent aerial mage. Without a firm grasp on both spells you'd snap your own neck in evasive maneuvers or find yourself shot out of the sky without even knowing what had happened. If I had any kind of combat rated computation orb I could maintain both spells as easy as breathing, leaving the rest of my mind free to fly and fight.

I did not have a computation orb. That made body enhancement a chore and meant there was no way that I was going to rip this stump out of the ground with my bare hands. If I was going to get rid of this stump and complete my appointed task I was going to have to do something stupid and reckless. Something that was nigh suicidal for anybody who wasn't me.

I was feeling nostalgic already.

Taking a deep breath, I took a few steps away from the tree stump and held out my hand with my palm pointing towards my target. With one part of my mind I started running through a set of mathematical equations while with another I focused on gathering magical power and directing it toward my hand. Gently at first and then with an increasingly firm hand as the power began to flow quickly enough to bleed into the visual spectrum. I felt sweat beading on my forehead. While this spell would be a joke on the battlefield it was still more than powerful enough to blow off my hand if I lost control of it now.

There was nothing for it but to grit my teeth and carry on. The spell continued to come together and began afflicting me with the tension headache that indicated I was reaching my limit. If I had taken this much time to gather power with a computation orb the resulting spell would have been able to knock out a tank. Now, I wasn't sure if it would be enough to take out a tree stump. Only one way to find out, though. I grunted slightly as I pulled the mental trigger that released the spell.

The ball of light flew from my hand too quickly for the naked eye to follow. It hit the tree stump and created a gratifyingly dramatic explosion of dirt and splintered wood. The blasted debris was sent away from me, which was nice. I took a moment to catch my breath before taking a few steps forward to confirm my success. The tree stump was gone. A shallow crater in the dirt the only sign of its passing.

It's funny. I never really took pride in my craft. I was proud of my career and proud of my accomplishments, but I never really thought of myself as simply being good at magic. That spell, though... I was pretty knowledgeable about who could do what in the world of combat mages, and I could count on one hand the names of the people who could maybe pull off an orb-free explosive spell.

There was one person who I knew for sure could have done it, but I'd killed her.

Really, when you came right down to it, I was one of the best in the world when it came to magical violence. But thanks to the Treaty of Triano I couldn't sell my services. What a horrifying affront against the principle of the free market system. Being X must have laughed himself silly when he set up that situation.

Maybe I shouldn't blame everything on Being X. After all, even in my old world there was no end to the government's interference in the free market. And while I was no student of history, I was pretty sure that the treaty that ended the first world war was just as punitive as the Treaty of Triano. That treaty hadn't been the result of supernatural interference.

Even so, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, right? Even if Being X didn't intervene to set up this situation, he was certainly enjoying the show. While I didn't remember all the details of my original world's history, it was easy enough to see the broad strokes of what was coming. Tanya von Degurechaff survived the great war only to be left penniless and cast adrift to endure hyperinflation, the great depression, the rise of a bunch of fanatics, and an even more dangerous second world war.

Really, I should try not to worry about things that are outside of my control. Sister Margaret was pleased with my work from my first week and rewarded me with a bit of pocket money, which meant that I could finally check off a milestone that had been on my mind for a while: my first drink in this world. While my unit had been getting free drinks everywhere we went, everybody was very conscious of the fact that I was underage. I probably could have ordered them to let me drink anyways, but the Imperial military was very strict and rule abiding. The last thing I needed was a note in my file if somebody complained that I was using undue influence as a commander to force people to break the law.

In the end I guess it didn't matter, but I had held onto the hope throughout the war that I would have a long term career in the military.

Now, though I was still underage I didn't expect the bartender to care. He wouldn't have any reason to know me. More than that, he wouldn't want to turn away a paying customer. I also made sure to wear my jacket with the Silver Wings Assault Badge pinned to it over my dress just in case I could milk a little sympathy from a fellow veteran.

The orphanage was in a sleepy part of Berun, but there was still a bar within easy walking distance. I say bar, but perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a beer hall. The whole thing was a single enormous room, bigger than any drinking establishment I'd seen back in Japan. Customers were seated at wooden picnic tables that were set up in rows in the middle of the room. The bar ran along one side of the hall while a stage was set up on the other. Instead of a band the stage was occupied by some guy rambling on about politics. I ignored him and made my way to the bar.

As expected, the bartender barely glanced at me before taking my money and sliding me a pint. The beer itself was a surprise. To be honest, I wasn't a big drinker in my previous life. Even so, fitting in to a big corporation requires attendance at social events. I had had enough alcohol to know what I liked, which was sake, then wine, then spirits, then beer as a last resort. This beer, though, tasted good. I couldn't say whether it was due to some change in my palate or just that the beer here was better, but either way it was easy to drink.

I started feeling pleasantly buzzed about halfway through. This was also unusual, but it wasn't hard to explain. Even after having gone through puberty I had yet to crack ninety pounds and this was my first exposure to booze. In all likelihood I'd find myself plastered if I dared to have a second drink.

I was contemplating whether to risk it when my train of thought was interrupted by a boy sidling up to my spot at the bar.

"Hey little miss, where'd you get that medal?"

I blinked, confused, before I followed his gaze to the silver wings pinned to my jacket. "I killed six people over Norden. Early in the war they thought that was impressive."

While I was speaking I started to think through the implications of his question. Did he think I was some child playing with her parent's medals? The boy in front of me was barely old enough that he might have been drafted to serve in the rear lines at the tail end of the war, but he was far too young to have been involved in the trench warfare on the Rhine. And he wanted to question my service? By the time I finished speaking I had fixed him with my best glare.

He responded with a somewhat gratifying expression of panic. "You're... Argent Silver?"

I nodded and shooed him away. It wasn't until he made his way back to a table filled with his friends that a more chilling thought occurred to me. Had he been looking to break the ice in order to hit on me?

If there was one thing that left me grateful for the low impact puberty had had on my body it was that it left me with almost no libido. Despite my appearance I still maintained my preferences from my previous life. Fortunately, I didn't feel any particular drive to act on them. The Empire might have been relatively progressive in allowing female aerial mages to serve in the military, but it had its limits. Besides that, I needed to focus on keeping myself alive and my career healthy.

Now, though, despite my own restraint, was I going to have to deal with teenage boys every time I headed out in public? The only way I could respond to that thought was to return to my drink.

The guy up on the stage kept droning on and on about scientific socialism. It was strange. I was used to a world where capitalist societies had stolen the best ideas from every other system and drowned the world in a tide of consumerism. Here, though, everybody thought that some kind of socialism or communism was the wave of the future and people were all too eager to debate the pros and cons of various systems of government.

People also felt free to air their personal beliefs even when they veered into what sounded like crackpot theories to my modern sensibilities. Like the guy sitting at a table near my bar stool who could barely wait for a pause in the lecture before announcing his own opinion.

"I'll tell you what we should do. We should join hands with Ildoa. A greater Ildoa could dominate the continent!"

I couldn't help but snort at the idea. I must have drank enough that I wasn't as subtle as I thought I was, as the man swiveled around in his seat to glare at me.

"You disagree, little girl?"

I took a moment to size him up. He looked to be in his late thirties, and I'd eat my hat if he had served a day in the army. Everything about him made me think of an academic who had never had to deal with a practical problem in his life.

I didn't really want to get dragged into a political discussion in a bar, but I could see that the people around us had noticed what was going on. I couldn't bear to back down from this guy without a fight. Honestly, the most merciful course of action is probably to crush his crackpot idea so thoroughly that he'll reconsider and adopt some more sensible beliefs.

I shook my head in response to his question. "I don't think Ildoa wants to ship its treasury off to the Francois Republic."

He smiled, clearly having anticipated this line of argument. "That's the clever part. The treaty of Triano only applies to the Republic of Germania. It says nothing about Ildoa."

I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"You think the Francois would be satisfied with a name change? Would they take their boots off our necks so easily?" I asked, before polishing off my drink. I set the glass down on the table more forcefully than I had intended, but fortunately nothing broke. "Would you like to go to Parisee and beg them to let us off? Get down on hand and knees and ask for our pride back?"

He looked around him for support as he found himself on the back foot. Finding none, all he could do was throw out a weak question in response. "What would you do, then?"

I smiled. The problem with the academic mind, besides an over reliance on things like the letter of the law, is that it has no understanding of how to appeal to the average Imperial citizen. For all that we were now under a republican form of government, the people were still the same. They naturally gravitated towards the person who sounded like the most die hard patriot and the most gung ho battle maniac.

I was neither a patriot nor a battle maniac, of course. But I'd spent the last eight years honing my ability to sound like both.

"There's only one thing to do! The Germanian people need to throw off their shackles and come together in the Empire! We must stand on our own two feet!"

That prompted murmurs of agreement from the men seated near us. My opponent was reeling now, grasping at straws as he attempted to find his equilibrium.

"You're talking about war."

I couldn't help but sneer. What kind of a fool publicly admits he doesn't have the belly for a fight? I mean, I'm all in favor of running from a fight you can't win, but I don't go around talking about it. Even if it was obvious our country would be crushed if we actually violated the treaty, there was no real risk in just talking tough in a bar. Time to bring this on home with the most absurdly over the top posturing imaginable.

"If need be," I said. "Would you rather die on your feet or live on your knees?"

A chorus of cheers and stomping feet broke out around us. I looked around, startled away from my focus on my opponent. I hadn't realized that we had such an enthusiastic audience. By the time I looked back the man I had been arguing with had left. I had other things to worry about, though.

The guy who had been up on stage had made his way to the bar. As I watched he spoke a few words with the bartender before leveling a meaningful look in my direction. Looks like I was in trouble for starting a ruckus while he was trying to talk.

Man, I did not want to celebrate my first drink by getting kicked out of a bar. Worse, what if this guy was politically connected and decided to get me into trouble with the law? If word got back to the orphanage I could wind up out on the street. What a disaster. I knew I should have kept my stupid mouth shut.

Busy with my internal recriminations, I was caught by surprise when the man I was worried about approached to within arm's length. I was even more surprised by the friendly smile on his face.

"I couldn't help but overhear your spirited conversation," he said, sliding a fresh pint of beer in front of me as he took a seat on the neighboring bar stool. "Tell me, are you interested in joining the Germanian Workers' Party?"

ooOoo


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: I will be sticking with the canon convention of extremely lazy name changes being made to real world people and places._

ooOoo

The guy who had been giving a boring speech on politics turned out to be Johan Dressler, the chairman of the Germanian Workers' Party. Despite his unimpressive appearance, the GWP was a real party and could boast of four members in the Federal Diet. Admittedly that was a small proportion of a parliament of 480 people, but it was still a lucky break for me to meet a genuine VIP and for him to take a shine to me.

I did my best to make a good impression and in the end we were able to strike a deal: I would make speeches on behalf of the party in exchange for pocket money. If things went well, I'd have a chance to join the executive committee. As expected of an experienced politician, Dressler drove a bargain that cost him little but could win him a lot. Even so, I was happy.

I had an advantage over everybody else in this world, after all. Though I'd worked in human resources, I'd still picked up a decent amount of knowledge about sales techniques. Also, as a consumer I had been exposed to political campaigns that were the result of decades of modern refinement. Building a successful ad campaign in these primitive conditions ought to be within my ability.

For myself, securing a sinecure within a political party was the next best thing to getting a government job. Better, since it wasn't forbidden by an international treaty. Was it hypocritical for me, an advocate of the free market, to be so eager to work for the state? I suppose.

I never pretended to be a paragon of virtue. I preferred to leave that for posers like Being X. I have always considered myself to be a rational person who responds to incentives just like anybody else. It's only rational to seek a stable position in a time of uncertainty. When hyperinflation makes everybody unable to keep paying a living wage, I want my job to be as close as possible to the people who control the printing presses at the national mint. Even a small political party would naturally have more political pull than most businesses.

In order to do a good job and get myself hired on to a permanent position my first task was to do some market research. I had never paid much attention to domestic politics when I was in the army. Fortunately it was pretty easy to get up to speed. Berun as the capital was chock full of people eager to talk politics. The country had just recently changed from an empire to a republic as well as losing a war and losing a tremendous amount of territory. Nobody was certain what the future would hold but everybody had an opinion about what the government ought to do.

To put it simply, it was a mess. Depending on how you counted there were four or five political parties with more than ten percent of the vote. None of them could count on receiving more than twenty percent. Another three or four parties had a significant level of support but are stuck below ten percent. Then there were a bunch of parties that have representatives but numerically their share was more or less a rounding error. My new party belonged to that last group.

Finally, Germania possessed a disheartening number of supporters of true blue communists. Their numbers in the national parliament were low because they were pushing for a revolution. If they were to encourage their supporters to vote they would quickly become a first tier political party. For the moment, though, they were focused on recruiting for their revolutionary army as well as setting thugs on so-called "capitalist running dogs"-in other words, effective critics of communism.

Forming a majority in the Diet required a grand coalition of four different parties. Even then the defection of any one of the parties would mean the loss of the majority. It would have been a volatile situation in a normal country. In a country that was still reeling from a humiliating defeat and facing down communist agitators... it was a mess, all right.

Never mind that, my task was only to improve the appeal of the Germanian Workers' Party. The two pillars of the GWP could be described as dislike for the Treaty of Triano and promotion of scientific socialism.

As to the Treaty of Triano, just about every Germanian hated it. The treaty had carved up our country and imposed massive reparation payments that we could hardly afford. The problem was what to do about it. The treaty wasn't something we had freely agreed to in the first place. It was something that had been imposed on us by force, and directly violating the treaty would result in that force coming back to crush us further underfoot.

Some parties suggested complying with the treaty completely. The basic theory was to earn goodwill, or less charitably to curry favor with our conquerors. Others were in favor of various means of passive aggressive or legalistic evasion of our obligations. The Germanian Workers' Party took a relatively hard line, which I believed was responsible for the bulk of its support. Well, that and the fact that Dressler was a distinguished former soldier who got along well with other former soldiers. The demographic of unemployed former soldiers was depressingly large with the war over.

The concept of scientific socialism was Dressler's pet project. He was happy to expound at length about any and every detail related to his theory of governance. The forty-eight hour work week was mandated by science. The forty hour work week was a communist plot. Generous unemployment benefits were vital to the health of the state, but benefits that are too generous would promote indolence and sloth. In other words, the man was something of a nerd.

In a way it was inspiring to listen to somebody talk who is inspired about the subject at hand. In a more concrete sense it was such a terrible bore that I suspected simply dropping it completely would greatly improve our ability to recruit supporters. Unfortunately, Dressler obviously wouldn't accept such a radical change to what he considered to be the heart of the party. I'd just have to work around him with the wonder of modern marketing.

The thing to keep in mind was that in a parliamentary system it was no good to achieve lukewarm goodwill in the hearts of the voters. People had no need to compromise in their votes and could support the party of their dreams, achieving success proportional to their share of the votes. There was no real concept of a "wasted vote" as there was in a two party system. Therefore it was better to have 10% of the people love you and 90% of the people hate you than to have 5% of the people love you and 95% not care about you. Whether it was hate or indifference, it would be the same cost of a single lost vote.

Accordingly, as to the Treaty of Triano, our policy should be to reject it in a forthright fashion. What's that? If we reject the treaty we will be crushed by our enemies? That sounds like the talk of a coward to me. If the people of Germania stand together with God on our side, who can stand against us? Long live the Empire!

For the most part people wouldn't vote for a policy of national suicide. But in a large group of people you'll always find a few who believe anything. Even in a modern society you'll find ten or fifteen percent of people who believe in alien abductions. There ought to be at least that many who think we could win if we give war another try. The best part is that people who want to outright reject the treaty didn't currently have a political party to represent them. It's a basic market principle to profit by identifying an under served market and catering to their needs.

I suppose it's a problem that pursuing this policy would destroy the country. Imagine what would happen if we actually obtained a position of power? Fortunately, this was a problem that solved itself. By taking an open position in favor of a crazy policy we could ensure that we would never be put in a position of power. Endless employment in the Diet with no responsibility for anything the government does sounded like the perfect job to me.

As to scientific socialism, while it couldn't be removed from the platform it could be deemphasized. Instead of talking at length about the details of every program I could simply allude to the wonderful things that will happen. Workers will be treated with dignity. Everybody will earn a living wage. The unemployed will be protected by a safety net. What does that mean, exactly? I'm glad you asked and Mr. Dressler would be happy to discuss it with you at length after I'm done talking. Rest assured that whatever specific payout you are interested in will certainly be provided, though.

Dressler's theories would never be much of a selling point but I was confident that I could at least reduce the extent to which they drove people away. We would avoid any problems with failing to keep promises once we gained power through the simple expedient of never taking power because of the other, more insane, portion of our party platform.

There was one other thing that we needed: a scapegoat. The Empire had lost the war. Badly. The average citizen was quite angry about that. The kind of person who wanted to tear up the Treaty of Triano even more so. All of that anger needed an outlet. There was no easier way to bond with people than to complain about somebody you both disliked, after all. Dressler tended to blame the result of the war on various religious and ethnic minorities, though the specific theory varied day by day.

This was no good. Those ethnic and religious minorities could vote, you know. There may not be that many of them but our party didn't have so many supporters that we could afford to throw anybody away. Instead, it was much better to direct our anger at a group that couldn't vote in our elections: foreigners. Specifically, the Francois.

Honestly, their actions were a little bit despicable. They invaded our country for no real reason while our army was occupied with its response to the similarly unprovoked invasion by the Entente. Then, after they were soundly defeated they pleaded for an armistice and instead of properly proceeding to negotiate a peace they used the time provided to gather their forces and continue a bitter resistance. If you really took the time to think about it, every problem ailing Germania could be traced back to some perfidious action by the Francois Republic.

The Francois invasion was a rational, even predictable response to the counter-invasion of the Entente? The Republic had no choice but to invade in order to preserve its national strategy of putting pressure on the exterior lines of the Empire? Perhaps an academic might say that, but frankly I'd rather not be the person trying to make that argument in Berun to a bunch of unemployed veterans.

So it was that after a week of research I began making the case for an absurdly bellicose foreign policy, pie-in-the-sky government expenditures, and hatred of our neighboring country.

ooOoo

"For our own government to become a tax collector for the Francois is a disgrace! If Monsieur Mirande wants to take the bread off of our tables, let him come take it for himself!"

I paused for a moment to let the cheers die down as I surveyed the crowd. The results of my rabble rousing were already becoming obvious after two months of effort. Where Dressler had been addressing half full and half interested beer halls, today's venue was packed and crackling with enthusiasm. I wouldn't say the place was standing room only but as I looked around I couldn't see any empty tables.

"Remember, a vote for the Germanian Workers' Party is a vote for a strong Germania! A vote for a safe Germania! As long as the people of Germania stand together we will never be defeated! Thank you for your support!"

Another round of applause. Ah, demagoguery was rewarding work. When the roar of the crowd started to quiet down my plants began to lead the group in singing an old Imperial standby about the greatness of the Germanian people. It wasn't quite as provocative as the Imperial national anthem, but it got the message across. I hopped down from the stage and mingled with the crowd as Dressler came up to follow me. It was a little cruel, but I hoped that the difference in the crowd response to his analytical approach as compared to the raw red meat that I was throwing out would help drive home my value to the party.

It didn't take long for me to work my way to the back of the room. Here it was quiet enough to hold a conversation and one could speak without interrupting Dressler's lecture. As expected, I found an old friend sitting alone in a booth. Lieutenant, or rather, Viktoriya Serebryakov. She looked to be deep in thought with her head down over her drink. It was strange to see her in civilian clothes.

I gave her a smile as I slid into the booth to sit across from her. "It's been a while, Visha. How do you like peace time?"

"Ah, it's good, it's good. Hot food and a shower every day is nice," she said, though she looked troubled. "Lately I have been feeling a little aimless."

As expected of a member of my battalion. Visha was relatively level headed but she's still a battle maniac at heart. I'd have to take her under my wing to help turn her skills to productive use in the private sector.

"You know, the party should be making me a member of the executive committee soon. I could use an adjutant."

She looked down at the table and chewed on her lip for a moment before replying. "To tear up the treaty of Triano and then win a war... can we really do that?"

It was easy to forget because of her innocent appearance, but Visha had a sharp military mind. She was an ace many times over in her own right and had fought beside me on every battlefield imaginable during the war. It was only natural that she would spot how impossible it would be for me to pull off everything I'd promised up on the stage. No matter how stir crazy she felt she was hardly going to sign up to follow a lunatic charging into an unwinnable war.

"What do you think?"

I couldn't just announce to the whole bar that I'd been lying to them all evening, so I'd have to rely on a more subtle Socratic method to tell Visha that I could see what she saw. That rather than plunging the country into war I intended to scam the voters into providing me with a cushy job and if she helped me out then I could extend that cushy lifestyle to her.

"I see," she said, the hesitation vanishing from her eyes. "In that case, I will walk beside you every step of the way!"

Judging from her enthusiasm she must have really been going stir crazy since we all were kicked out of the military. Well, that really wasn't any of my business. I was just happy to have her on board. A trusted and competent aide was worth her weight in gold. I started to brief her on her immediate duties but I was soon interrupted by a ruckus near the entrance.

I had to stand up on my seat in order to see what was going on. By rising up on my tiptoes and craning my neck I could see a group of large men wearing red armbands in the process of shoving their way inside.

Communists. I hated those guys.

When I read about communists in the history books I took an immediate dislike to their idiotic rejection of the free market and their stubborn refusal to admit their mistakes as their revolutionary paradises crumbled around them. Add on top of that the atrocities piled on atrocities that were required to keep the communists in control and it would be fair to say that I despised them.

That emotion paled, though, compared to the sheer anger that I felt upon meeting communists in the flesh for the first time. I'd dressed inconspicuously and attended a rally as part of scouting out the political opposition. Seeing somebody stand up on stage and call for abolishing public property in favor of a world where the Party decides everything had really set my blood boiling. If I'd had access to a proper computation orb I'm not sure I'd have been able to just walk away from that bunch of traitors.

The communist party didn't limit itself to the persuasion of sweet reason, of course. Their habit of setting thugs on their competitors was aimed at preserving their own exclusive access to a pool of likely recruits. An ironically mercantile approach, really. In the past they had more or less ignored the Germanian Workers' Party. For them to show up today was a sign that my approach was succeeding. At the very least it meant I was attracting a noticeable number of people who were willing to tear down society and try to build up something better.

The group of commies had succeeded in pushing their way through to the middle of the beer hall while I brought my temper back under control. Now that they were standing in a cleared spot I could get a decent count. Twelve men, all ready for a fight. We only had five men on hand who were ready for violence, and in all honesty they were more in the nature of bouncers than soldiers. The crowd that had been cheering so enthusiastically had largely drawn back from the impending violence, content to treat it as part of the evening's entertainment.

Political violence was seen a lot differently here than in my original world. In modern day Japan a political party that actively endorsed a physical attack on its opponents could expect a storm of condemnation. If the supporters of two different parties got into a brawl each side would rush to the media to claim they were the innocent victims of a vicious attack. Republican Germania was a more rough and tumble place. As long as nobody died a certain level of violence was just seen as a natural part of politics. Winning the fight was more important than trying to establish moral superiority.

I was going to have to take matters into my own hands if I wanted this to turn out well. Fortunately, the communists were still milling around and taking their time sizing up Dressler and the two bouncers guarding the stage.

"Gentlemen," I called out, pitching my voice so it would carry clearly throughout the room, "I'm afraid this bar doesn't serve dogs or communists."

The group turned and stared at me for a moment before an apparent leader stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. "That's all right. We're not here to order. We're here for a debate."

"Fair enough," I said. "I suppose I should communicate in a manner you can understand."

With that I activated a magical formula to enhance my physical strength and leaped towards the group of men. I landed just outside of their reach and layered an acceleration spell on top of the physical enhancement. It wasn't much of a boost. A proper enemy mage could have shot me dead and had his gun back in the holster before I knew what had happened. Against untrained brawlers, though, it was more than enough. In my eyes my opponents looked like they were trying to swim through molasses as I darted forward untouched and smashed a kick up between their leader's legs.

Without a proper computation orb I couldn't manage anything ridiculous like punting him into the ceiling. Still, my leg was able to impart enough force to lift him a foot or two into the air. I watched in slow motion as winces spread through the rest of the communists like ripples in still water as they realized what had happened.

I took advantage of the brief pause to step back and lean over to take hold of the leg of a chair that had been abandoned earlier. A step forward brought me into range and I swept the chair across my body. It smashed with satisfying violence into the group, sending two men flying as the chair exploded into pieces. The chair leg left in my hand was quite conveniently sized to serve as a cudgel.

Everything after that took place in a sort of red blur. When I came back to myself I was standing in the middle of eleven unconscious bodies.

Hmm. I could have sworn there were twelve of them before. A second check around the area confirmed that I had only beaten eleven of them unconscious. It wasn't until I glanced back towards our booth that everything became clear.

In the middle of the fight one of the men had slipped away and headed toward Visha. Whether he was looking to take a hostage or simply to escape, I couldn't say. Either way, it left me with nothing to do but watch. She was firmly clamped in position on his back with both arms latched around his neck. It didn't take long before he fell to his knees and then the floor, thoroughly knocked out. For her part, Visha let him go and jumped clear just before he fell flat on her face. She was perfectly composed until she realized how much attention was on her, at which point she flushed and tried to hide away in our booth.

That reminded me that I should probably say something. First I headed over to the man Visha had knocked out and tossed him to land on top of the pile of his fellows, giving me a moment to think. Then I put my hands on my hips and turned to face the crowd.

"These degenerates preach collectivism because they are too weak to stand on their own two feet!" I announced. "I don't know if it's possible to beat the idiocy out of them, but I'm certainly willing to try!"

That prompted a cheer from the crowd. I waited until they turned their attention from me and started to talk amongst themselves before I relaxed. I took a seat on the bench and slid over until I was close enough to cuff Visha on her shoulder.

"Taking so long to knock out one man... you've gone soft," I said, teasing her. "It's a shame there's no more Rhine front to visit to knock the rust off."

"Yes, major," she said, her gaze fixed on the table.

One little fight and she was nostalgic enough to call me by my old rank. Honestly, it was a wonder that high command had managed to convince the army to surrender. I guess in the end Imperial discipline had been a little stronger than Imperial fighting spirit. It was enough to make me a little nervous. I needed to get Visha officially hired as my aide before she left for bloodier pastures.

The whole bar was still buzzing with conversation. Looking it over, I saw that Dressler had decided to cut his presentation short. As I watched, he finished talking to the group of bouncers and moved to start mingling with the crowd. For their part the bouncers started dragging the unconscious communists out of the way. I couldn't help but notice that they were taking them into the back room rather than tossing them out the front. Well, when you try to crash somebody's party I suppose you don't always get to leave when you want.

I put it out of my mind and turned my attention back to Visha. "Don't worry, I'll think of something. Come on, we should talk to the boss."

I tugged on her arm and half dragged her out onto the floor. The crowd politely parted around us as we made our way toward Johann Dressler. He seemed to feel us coming and turned to face us as we approached. I gently nudged Visha forward as we closed to within conversational distance.

"Mr. Dressler, this is my good friend Viktoriya Serebryakov. She hates communists nearly as much as I do and I think she'd make a wonderful addition to the party," I said. I put my best professional smile on my face before I continued. "I also think this is a good time to discuss my role in the party going forward."

Pushing for a promotion after performing meritorious service is just common sense.

ooOoo


	3. Chapter 3

_AN: I use the LN spelling of Lergen (anime: Rerugen) because I think it looks more German(ian). Also my guess is that most readers don't internalize the Japanese silent u rule and read Rerugen as Re-rue-gen, which isn't very German(ian) sounding at all._

ooOoo

Johan Dressler was the leader of a tiny political party. Before he even entered politics, though, he was a man with many friends. Those friends, in turn, had many friends of their own. The efforts of this personal network combined with the meager influence offered by his position allowed him to secure a meeting with Erich von Lergen within a week of making the effort to do so.

The leader of the Germanian Republic's military had an office that was modest for one of his status. The tasteful decorations called to mind the rumors of his academic nature. A single file folder occupied his desk, although the bookshelf along the wall that bulged with paperwork offered a more accurate glimpse into his workload. The man himself sat behind the desk with his hands folded in front of him, greeting Johan with a polite nod.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me."

"It's my duty to keep the civilian government apprised of the state of our armed forces, such as they are," Lergen replied, offering him a thin smile. "Coffee?"

Johan declined the offer as he took a seat in front of Lergen's desk. The opening statement was a polite request for Johan to get to the point. The military of the Republic was a small fraction of the military of the Empire. Even that numerical comparison overstated the strength of the Republic. The number of artillery pieces and armored units were restricted by treaty while aerial mages had been prohibited altogether. Beyond that, the severe budget constraints faced by the Republic limited the money available to provision and train the few troops they were allowed to have.

In other words, there was no real reason to press for a discussion of military readiness unless one wanted to hear in detail how the Republic could be crushed by the solitary efforts of any one of its neighbors, excluding the newly created nations carved out of the Empire that suffered under the same restrictions. While Lergen had gained his position largely by virtue of being the highest ranking member of Central Command remaining after the victors purged the top ranks at the end of the war, the man was smart and well-connected. Wasting his time was not something to be done lightly.

"I actually have a question about a personnel matter," Johan said. "Tanya von Degurechaff."

Lergen flinched. The slight but noticeable crack in his composure gave Johan hope that he was on the right track.

"Can you tell me anything about her?"

Johan hadn't expected much when he introduced himself to Tanya von Degurechaff. A simple endorsement from a famous war hero that would attract a few more veterans to the party was a more than fair exchange for a bit of beer money. Instead he had somehow acquired a dedicated advocate. The strangest thing about it was that for all of the vigor she displayed on stage and all of the work she was obviously putting into her preparations, he couldn't help but get the impression in their personal conversations that she didn't feel any real passion for the party's ideology.

There was a famous saying about gift horses and mouths, but there was another saying about Trojan Horses. It seemed unlikely that she could actually have been dispatched on some hidden agenda-the Germanian Workers' Party was honestly beneath the notice of somebody capable of recruiting the famed Argent Silver for a covert operation-but Johan had always been a careful man. The least he could do was seek out information from those who knew her well in order to shed some light on her motivations.

Lergen, having recovered his equilibrium, raised an eyebrow at the question. "Surely her exploits are public knowledge."

"It's hard to separate rumor from fact," Johan replied. "Especially in a time of war."

His own knowledge of Miss Degurechaff came from Imperial propaganda. He had no doubt that she was an effective soldier but he knew from experience that government publications would rarely print the unvarnished truth.

"Tanya Degurechaff. Graduated from Officer Candidate School at age nine. Second in her class. First saw combat in Norden during the opening moments of the war. Her actions that day made her an ace and earned her the Silver Wings Assault Badge. She was transferred to the Rhine front as part of the initial wave of reserves intended to blunt the invasion. She became ace of aces in a matter of weeks, a status she was to hold throughout the war. Once the front was stabilized she was recalled to attend War College," Lergen said. "Upon graduation and until the end of the war she was in the thick of the fighting. The details of her accomplishments are still classified. Suffice it to say, even if you only count battles against enemy Named she is easily an ace many times over. At present she has been discharged from the military in compliance with the Treaty of Triano."

"The most powerful aerial mage in the world," Johan said. Lergen's calm recitation of facts had the ring of truth. Perhaps the propaganda need not be discounted so much as he thought.

"Honestly, just saying that sells her a bit short. She graduated from War College as one of the twelve knights, earning the right to call herself Tanya von Degurechaff. Her teachers were unanimous in praising her mastery of tactics, strategy, and logistics," Lergen replied. "I can personally attest that her ability to predict the course of a battle and her ability to predict the course of the war bordered on the supernatural."

"Not just a peerless fighter but also a military genius," Johan said, taken aback. Lergen was famous as a military thinker and as a calm, reserved individual. For him to heap so much praise on a single person was shocking. It almost sounded like the propaganda had understated matters.

"If God ever made a perfect Imperial soldier it was on the day she was born," Lergen said. He sounded resigned rather than jubilant. For the Empire to suffer to defeat despite the efforts of splendid soldiers like Degurechaff must have been frustrating.

"It's a pity she is no longer permitted to serve in the military," Johan said. He was feeling rather pleased. It seemed the army's loss would be his party's gain. Even better was that to all appearances she was a genuine free agent.

"Yes..." Lergen said, trailing off for a moment before his gaze sharpened. "What was it that brought her to your attention?"

"I asked for her endorsement and she's taken it upon herself to become a very driven supporter of my political party," Johan said. "It made me curious about what kind of person she is. I suppose it's natural for someone talented to rise through the ranks at any organization."

Johan might have been imagining it, but Lergen's face seemed to pale at his comment. Something must have disturbed the man, as he reached into a drawer under his desk and withdrew a cut crystal decanter and a matching pair of glasses. He poured a finger's worth of amber liquid into each glass before sliding one across the table.

Johan picked up his glass and took a sniff before raising an appreciative eyebrow. He didn't hold much truck with the Francois, but they could make a strong spirit when they put their minds to it.

"You served in the army," Lergen said, holding his own glass up and idly swirling it as he spoke. "You must have known someone who you considered to be the ideal soldier."

Johan nodded. The sergeant in charge of his first platoon had been a demon on the training field. For a long time he had hated the man. Then they were ambushed during a routine border patrol. While the green troops stood frozen in fear the sergeant had charged forward. Johan would never forget the man's laughter as he disappeared in a cloud of gunsmoke.

In the end, the man had sent a whole enemy platoon to flight. When the Empire refused to issue a medal for what it dubbed a routine border incident it was the first time Johan ever questioned the wisdom of the Imperial government.

"Imagine you could take all of those soldierly virtues and stuff them into a nine year old girl," Lergen continued. Johan felt his stomach sink as he tried to imagine that sergeant in the body of a small child, let alone a little girl. "Imagine you then put that girl through eight years of warfare and military training. What do you suppose she would be like at the end of all that?"

Johan couldn't help but wince. Put like that, it almost sounded like whatever came out at the end of the process would barely be a human being. He took a drink from the glass in his hand, finding some comfort in the burn in the back of his throat.

"We gave Tanya von Degurechaff the name Argent Silver, but our enemies had their own name for her," Lergen said, tossing back his own drink before setting his glass down with a solid thud. When he leaned forward the calm, rational leader of the Republic's armed forces seemed to have been replaced by an ancient prophet. "The Devil of the Rhine."

ooOoo

Johan Dressler was not a particularly religious man. He did not subscribe to the extreme atheist notions of the communist party, but his attendance at church was sporadic and he rarely resorted to prayer. In the weeks following his meeting with Erich von Lergen he didn't experience any particular change in his belief in God. He did, however, begin to believe in the devil.

Tanya von Degurechaff never showed any of the hesitation of a novice to public speaking. She combined blistering invective and calls for national unity with aplomb. She described the inevitability of victory in a rematch of the great war in such a matter of fact fashion that Johan found himself regretting that he was too old to reenlist. Before her speeches he could sit down, do the analysis, run the numbers, and prove to his own satisfaction that Germania would be crushed even in a war with only the Republic of Francois. But once she got going he would inevitably find himself thinking "ah, but things might be different with Degurechaff in charge."

The mesmerizing effect of her utter conviction accounted for much of the improved attendance at Germanian Workers' Party events. The rest was explained by the fact that the speeches themselves were masterfully crafted for public consumption. Punchy language and accessible imagery managed to take a party platform that Johan himself would admit could be somewhat dry and wordy and turn it into a rallying cry for the common man.

Lergen had found her already a perfect soldier at nine. Johan was finding her already a perfect politician at seventeen. Even knowing that mages tended to mature early it still sent a shiver down his spine.

Johan could feel his grip on the party slipping away with every speech. Interest in the party had been stagnant but Degurechaff was bringing in new supporters hand over fist. The inner circle of the party was still made up of his men. He had brought them into politics and carefully nurtured their development. Even so, they were naturally competitive people who wanted to win. If they came to believe that Degurechaff was more likely to lead the party to success than he was then they would naturally want her in charge. They would of course judge such a thing with a thumb on the scale in favor of their old friend but Johan couldn't say how long he would come out ahead of Degurechaff even with such an advantage.

He might not have been so bothered if it weren't for his lingering doubts about her ideological leanings. She promoted his beloved socialism-quite effectively, truth be told-but it was obvious that her true passion lay in throwing off the shackles of Triano. That and her hatred of the Francois. He wondered sometimes if her true motivation was not ideological at all but rather a burning desire to take revenge on the foes who had defeated her beloved fatherland.

It seemed ridiculous on the face of it. Surely someone like Degurechaff had more direct paths available to her if she wanted to exercise power over the direction of the country. But if she truly desired to take the country's strength entirely into her own hand and thrust it like a dagger into the heart of the Francois... perhaps she would have to begin by taking over a small political party and remolding it in her own image before conquering the hearts and minds of the voters. Such a plan would require meticulous planning, political genius, and an iron will to see it through to completion.

It was ridiculous even after further consideration. And yet, when Johan remembered the expression on Erich von Lergen's face during their discussion, when he watched a rapt crowd hanging on Degurechaff's every word... he found that he couldn't dismiss the idea out of hand.

Would it really be so bad? Johan had been a soldier. Though he had no love for the Francois, he knew the terrible cost of war. Even so, if she could do it... if the cost of political victory was a victorious war... if his political ideals were to be promoted atop a mountain of foreigners' corpses... would it really be so bad?

He had trouble sleeping, some nights.

Matters came to a head when the damned Communists decided to crash one of their gatherings. Johan had spent years denouncing their evil creed and had never received anything other than contemptuous silence in response. Tanya von Degurechaff had rattled the reds badly enough after two months that they had sent a group of thugs to shut her up. Then, faced with a group of men that should have been able to raise a ruckus if not carry the day, she had smashed them all into the ground with ease.

Afterwards came the conversation he had been dreading for a while. She wanted to talk about her place in the party. She also, in a less than subtle move, had a friend that she wanted to bring along with her into the party's inner circle.

Johan took a moment to examine this Viktoriya Serebryakov. It might seem odd to add a Russite to an anti-communist party, but he knew that the former Empire was riddled with Russite refugees whose hatred for communism ran bone deep. The more concerning thing about this girl was her background. No member of Degurechaff's inner circle could possibly be a simple person. Her soft features and friendly smile might still have aroused Johan's protective instincts if he hadn't just watched her manhandle a communist brawler into helpless unconsciousness.

He turned his attention back to Degurechaff. It was only natural that she would want added influence in the party's inner ranks to match the supporters that she was bringing in to its fringes. This move was a little sudden, but he shouldn't have been surprised. A winner of the Silver Wings Assault Badge was of course not someone to sit back and endlessly calculate options. Rather, when she saw the chance for decisive victory she would act to seize it with all due haste.

And it would be a decisive victory. His own men had already been falling under her influence before the day's rousing victory. His own party had already been expanded well beyond its old limits by her efforts. Her star was clearly on the rise. There was nothing for him to do but smile, act with grace, and attempt to preserve some measure of influence.

"Naturally, I believe your proper role would be to take over as chairman of the party."

Her eyes widened in a remarkable facsimile of surprise. "But what about you?"

"I will remain on the executive committee. I can take charge of drafting the party platform," he said. His smile grew a little more natural. "In truth, I won't miss the administrative duties."

She drew herself up to a parade ground perfect posture of attention. "In that case, I shall do my best to bring glory to the party! And victory to the fatherland!"

In his heart, Johan Dressler could admit to himself that had the devil approached him and asked if he would sell his soul to ensure the success of the party, he would have been tempted. No, he almost certainly would have accepted.

Even so, whenever he saw Tanya von Degurechaff from that day forward a small regret would tug at the back of his mind. He would never voice it out loud. Still, it was always there.

He just couldn't help but wish that he had been told ahead of time before he entered into that kind of transaction.

ooOoo


	4. Chapter 4

_AN: I'm not going to bother changing the names for pre-1850 people in the Senki-verse. I'm also assuming that the broad strokes of pre-canon history are the same as our timeline. At some point I'll have to come up with some kind of explanation for the Empire's pre-canon success if I really want to take a crack at the ethnic makeup of the successor states, but I intend to avoid that for as long as possible (taking over the Low Countries as "disputed territory" without prompting an anti-Empire alliance seems ASB-ish to me to be honest)._

ooOoo

That Johan Dressler was a crafty one. Upon seeing that my strategy was successful he managed to push all the work of implementing it off on to me. I'd also have to shoulder the blame if things went wrong. On the other hand, if things went well he'd still be writing the party platform and control a majority on the executive committee. If my new position was the CEO, then he was the Chairman of the Board sitting in judgment of my performance.

I didn't mind. I never expected to be put straight into the catbird seat. I was confident in my strategy. And, in the mean time, the position did come with some perks. The most notable of these was control over the party's cash reserves.

Other than a basic operating budget, I converted most of our money into hard assets. Inflation was already high. Though it hadn't yet spiraled out of control, to somebody who knew the relevant economic history the signals were already there. If Germania was lucky then inflation wouldn't reach truly crushing levels for a few years, but until then it would be doing nothing but increasing. In that kind of situation holding onto a big pile of marks was foolish.

The most notable investment was the new party headquarters. An old manor house on the outskirts of Berun, the building was easily modified to hold a whole wing of office space, a few lovely conference rooms, and several apartments. Visha and I had taken one of the apartments for ourselves. It was convenient for work and after spending so long together on the battlefield we got along just fine as roommates.

It was a relief to be out of the orphanage. While I'd take charity if I needed it, I felt better when I could stand on my own two feet. Also, Sister Margaret was getting rather insistent in her talks with me about the manifold benefits of joining a nunnery. I counted myself fortunate to have nipped that in the bud.

The new party headquarters also had a detached carriage house. I'd had most of the internals removed. In time this would serve as our party's print shop. For now, though, it made for a convenient meeting place.

I entered the carriage house with Visha at my shoulder. The building was lit by a few flickering lanterns, supplemented by the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Three men were sitting inside on packing crates, engrossed in casual conversation. When I stopped in front of them and cleared my throat they all jumped to attention.

"Major!"

"Relax," I said, chuckling, "we're all civilians now."

I took a moment to look them over. Weiss, Koenig, and Neuman. My company commanders from the 203rd and three of the finest aerial mages in the world. The three of them were all enrolled in training for careers as magic professionals when Visha tracked them down. Weiss was working to become a doctor, while Koenig and Neuman were looking to get into engineering.

It was something I'd considered for myself. The problem was that just as becoming an aerial mage meant training to be a soldier, become a magical doctor required a medical degree and becoming a magical engineer required engineering school. Other careers had similar requirements. Some of the skills would cross over, but not nearly enough to just show up on the new job ready to work. Going through advanced retraining required family support for tuition fees and living expenses.

The three men in front of me were fortunate to have that kind of support. I was honestly a little surprised they were willing to consider abandoning such safe career paths when I was making such a lousy job offer. I figured they were hearing me out for old times' sake.

"Thank you all for coming," I said. "As you know, I have recently become the chairman of the Germanian Workers' Party. Our chief aims are to end the treaty of Triano and to provide a social safety net for Germanian citizens."

I waited a moment to see if there were any questions. As there were none, I continued.

"Our more immediate goal is to deal with the Communists who have started harassing our get-togethers. They aren't more than half-trained rabble, but there are a lot of them and I can't be everywhere," I said. "I need some quality fighters who can smash those commies flat without regard to their numbers."

There was a long pause before Neuman spoke up.

"Are we... suitable for that sort of thing?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Did I train any useless mages?"

Neuman coughed. "Of course, I don't mind a scrap. But to wade through a whole mob is a little much after turning in my computation orb."

Weiss jumped in at that point. "Did you stash away some Type-97s?"

I smiled at his eagerness even as I shook my head. I could sympathize. I felt a real same sense of loss when I had been required to turn in my own trusty Type-97 computation orb upon being discharged from the military. For an aerial mage the computation orb represents safety, freedom to travel, and self-defense all in one convenient package. The only solace I had at the time that I gave it up was that I was able to rid myself of the cursed Type-95 as well.

"Even if I did, I couldn't just hand those out like K-brot. Flashing a military grade orb around in public is a bad idea right now," I said. "That said, I've always felt that the mage is more important than the equipment. Consider the Junghans Mark Three."

The Junghans Mark Three computation orb. It was a class C device, or in other words a computation orb capable of handling the mana output of a class C mage. Primarily intended for fine engineering, it was capable of a degree of precision that actually exceeded most military grade orbs. Unfortunately, in addition to the low mana ceiling, it lacked the redundancy and safety features needed for military applications. Fortunately, it wasn't like I needed to rely on it while charging into artillery fire or anything like that.

I held the orb up for them to see and focused. This was going to be tricky. The traditional distinction between Class B and Class C mages was that Class B mages can fly. It was ingrained to the point that people often referred to Class B and Class A computation orbs collectively as "flight-capable." If you got down into the details, though, flight was technically possible without exceeding the Class C mana ceiling. In theory.

Bringing theory into practice had cost me weeks of hard work and several burnt out computation orbs. I couldn't keep the smile off my face as my feet lifted gently off the ground and the sensation of standing was replaced with the comfortably familiar sensation of hovering in place in midair. While I had been practicing with this moment in mind, getting the chance to fly again had been a much appreciated side benefit.

Inside the computation orb the flight spell was a masterpiece that only I would ever see. I had never honed a spell to this level of mana efficiency before. I didn't usually need to conserve mana with my capacity and in combat the ability to pour on power on demand was far more important than absolute efficiency. It was a pleasant to surprise to find that when I put my mind to it I was able to pare away absolutely every nonessential component to the spell and rig the remaining pieces together in a workable balance.

Reduced as the spell was, I wouldn't be able to fly any faster than a brisk jog. Even so, the spell was straining at the very limits of what the computation orb could handle. I hovered in place long enough to bask for a moment in my audience's shock, then eased off the power and floated back down to the ground. As soon as I landed I tossed the orb over to Weiss.

"I don't expect you oafs to fly, but a basic speed and strength enhancement should be possible. Perhaps a defensive screen as well," I said. "More than enough to handle some communist thugs, right?"

"Yes!" Weiss replied, still staring at the computation orb in his hand, as were Koenig and Neuman. I waited for a moment before giving up and clearing my throat to get their attention.

"I'm looking to hire capable mages to form the core of the new security auxiliary to the Germanian Workers' Party," I said. "The pay is mediocre, although you will enjoy an influential position within the party."

The three men turned to look at each other. I could imagine what they were thinking. They were on track now for lucrative, if ordinary, careers. On the other hand, they would naturally gravitate towards a more combative line of work. It was closer to what they had been doing and they already knew they excelled. Even if the money wasn't good, the prospect of accruing political influence in the future wasn't a bad substitute.

It was tempting to leave things at that, but I didn't want to lure anybody in under false pretenses.

"I should warn you that the party's platform is quite extreme. It's unlikely that we'll ever see an election where we win enough votes to implement our policies," I said. "I want to make sure you understand before you make a commitment."

There was a long pause. I couldn't blame anybody who refused. I would count myself lucky if one of them signed up.

"I'm in!" announced Weiss.

"Me too," Neuman added.

"I suppose I should join as well," Koenig said.

Well. A battle maniac was a battle maniac to the end. Honestly, I didn't think it's a bad deal for them. I'd be looking out for them, and if the military ever got out of that stupid treaty restriction then they'd have a head start on joining back up.

I smiled as if I had expected their reaction, then tossed computation orbs to Neuman and Koenig. Visha already had hers.

"Start with one spell at a time. Any orbs that explode will come out of your pay," I said. "If you're having trouble come see me for a special training session."

They all flinched at that. Honestly. I didn't even have access to artillery any more.

ooOoo

Mattheus Weiss managed to wait until the Major closed the door behind her before he started poking at the new computation orb. The initial look didn't reveal too many differences between this orb and the orbs he'd used before. Shrugging, he called up his mana and fed it into the spell formula for strength enhancement.

Almost immediately the orb began to overheat while warning messages rang out in his consciousness. Weiss yanked his mana back from the device with a hiss.

"Shit!" he said, barely restraining the urge to chuck it across the room before calming himself down enough to perform a safety check. "This piece of junk damn near exploded from a single enhancement."

"What did you expect? It's class C equipment," Koenig said, a tinge of laughter in his voice.

He had a point. While strength enhancement was technically a class D spell, when they used it in order to survive high speed flying acrobatics they easily poured in more mana than a class C mage could handle. Weiss was going to have to retrain his instincts as well as restrict his spell repertoire in order to use this new orb. Still, even if Koenig had a point there was no need to just take his ribbing.

"I just watched someone fly with this thing," Weiss replied. It was only natural to expect a flight capable orb to handle a basic strengthening formula.

"The Major is the Major," Koenig replied with a shrug.

That drew nods all around. The members of the 203rd had learned early on that it was pointless to measure themselves against their commanding officer's capabilities. While this particular example was more subtle than the artillery barrages he'd seen her unleash during the war, the same principle applied.

For the next little while silence filled the cavernous room as they focused on their work. While nobody came close to destroying their computation orb, nobody seemed to be having any immediate success putting them to work, either.

"Do you think she's serious?" Neuman asked, glancing between the other three as he broke the silence. "About taking over without being elected, I mean."

Weiss hesitated. When Serebryakov found him and told him the Major was fighting on a new battlefield, he naturally wanted to follow behind her. To be so bluntly told that they would someday fight their way through Berun to seize power had given him pause. On the other hand, the Major wasn't the kind of officer to throw away her subordinates' lives in the pursuit of glory.

"I don't think she'll do anything illegal," Serebryakov said. As expected, she was quick with a good word for the Major.

"Of course everything will be nice and legal," Koenig said, chuckling. "The Major is the Major."

That brought winces from everybody else. The Major's ability to dance around the laws of war was rivaled only by her ability to dance through the sky under enemy fire. Over the course of years and years of an increasingly desperate war Weiss had seen too many things he'd rather forget.

Even so, no matter how he looked at it, Major von Degurechaff was somebody who was willing to do whatever it took to win. That attitude, and the ability to back it up, were both badly needed by their country right now.

"If anybody can put the Empire back together, she can," Weiss said. "If elections stop that, then what good are they?"

"After six years following her through hell," Koenig said, shrugging, "why not follow her through the Reichstag?"

Neuman hesitated only briefly before he nodded in agreement. "I always liked having an Emperor, anyways."

None of them bothered to look to see what Serebryakov thought. Forget charging into hell, if the Major led an assault on the Gates of Heaven then she would be right there by her side raining artillery spells on the heavenly host.

ooOoo

With physical security sorted out I was free to turn my attention to the campaign trail. Of course, there was no election pending. The Germanian Republic had a four year period between elections. If the governing coalition fell apart then elections could happen earlier, but if such a thing were to happen then forty-five days would be allotted for campaigning before the vote took place. Typically, serious campaigning would be limited to the period of the months before the election. In other times party activities would be aimed at recruiting volunteers and impressing hyper-partisans.

Presumably people also used this time to govern, but my party didn't have much to do with the actual exercise of power.

When Dressler ceded the chairmanship to me there were a little more than three years to go before the next scheduled election. The current common sense said that a voter would not be swayed by a campaign event years and years ahead of the vote. Even if the voter were persuaded they would be re-persuaded over and over again before making their final decision. I couldn't argue with that. On the other hand, the purpose of early campaigning for me was not to lock in actual votes, but rather to raise brand awareness.

The Germanian Workers' Party was tiny. For most voters the first time they heard of us would be when they saw the party name on the ballot. Under that kind of circumstance we could hardly expect anybody to take a leap of faith and blindly choose to vote for us. Accordingly, the goal of my efforts was to convey two very simple messages. First, we exist. Second, if you really hate the treaty of Triano then you should vote for us.

We didn't have nearly enough money for a mass media campaign. Forget putting ads on newsreels nationwide, we couldn't even afford radio or even newspaper ads in any kind of quantity. Luckily for us paper, ink, and shoe leather were cheap and Germania still had an excellent rail system. After a little bit of trial and error we hit on a reasonably effective method.

The advance team of barely paid volunteers would visit our target city or town a week ahead of time. They'd invest most of their efforts putting posters up wherever it looked like they would be seen without being torn down. Or at least where they would be seen before they were torn down. The posters had a stylized drawing of me that was easy to reproduce and announced the time and place that I would be speaking. Other than putting up the posters the advance team would find good-sized public gatherings and pass out as many handbills as they could.

On one side of the handbill was a political cartoon. We rotated between a few, but the general tone was always anti-Francois. The other side gave a little sample of our sales pitch.

 _ **TANYA DEGURECHAFF AND THE GERMANIAN WORKERS' PARTY DENOUNCE THE TREATY OF TRIANO: _ p.m. on _ at _**_

 _ **The Treaty of Triano is illegal:**_ _The Legadonia Entente started the war based on a territorial dispute. Under the Treaty of Worms the final settlement of a war must relate to the initial casus belli._

 _ **The Treaty of Triano is unjust:**_ _Napoleon drowned the world in blood as he attempted to put Europe under the yoke of tyranny. When he was defeated the Francois nation was left intact. The Germanian nation expanded according to international law and was dismembered in a fit of pique by the Francois._

 _ **The Treaty of Triano is dangerous:**_ _The Germanian people have been left vulnerable to conquest by any would-be master of Europe. If the Treaty of Triano is left in place then we will surely suffer another invasion in due time._

 _ **THE GERMANIAN WORKERS' PARTY IS THE ONLY PARTY THAT WILL RENOUNCE THE TREATY OF TRIANO WITHOUT RESERVATION**_

This world did not have access to google or wikipedia. Collecting pithy arguments against the treaty of Triano for people to reference would help them articulate their discontent. Slapping our party's name all over the same piece of paper should help them remember that we exist.

The fatal flaw in all of the arguments, of course, was that even if the treaty was awful it didn't mean that starting a suicidal war was a good idea. In all honesty, I was doing the country a service by scooping up the voters who couldn't figure out that kind of thing and keeping them from voting for some bloodthirsty maniac.

With the ground thus prepared, I would come to town on the appointed date along with another team tasked with passing out flyers and brochures describing our party platform. Once a crowd gathered-or it became embarrassingly obvious that no crowd would be gathering-I would launch into what was becoming a reasonably well honed stump speech.

Of course, I always began with a discussion of the main issue of the day.

 _"The Treaty of Triano is a disgrace!"_

I often brought a copy of the treaty with me. Depending on the venue I could set it on fire, tear it to pieces, or do something more creative.

I would then segue into a discussion of our domestic policies. People would remember the fire and bombast, but talking about meat and potatoes issues helped keep up the facade that I was some kind of serious politician.

 _"The duty of our government is to look out for the common man. If a good Germanian can't find work through no fault of his own, can we simply turn our back and let him die in the street?"_

I usually found time to work in some discussion my pet issues.

 _"The fiscal policies of the current government are the height of foolishness. If this keeps up we will be using bank notes for wallpaper!"_

And, of course, I had a unifying theme.

 _"What do we see when we dare to peer behind the curtain? Every time, the grasping hand of the Francois Republic! They are a dying nation. They can't keep up with the modern world. So they swindle, they deceive, and they enlist the aid of other countries to press us down and steal the fruit of our labors!"_

The overall results could most fairly be described as mediocre. I certainly wasn't filling stadiums with cheering crowds. That said, I was out there every day speaking to groups that usually numbered at least twenty people, and most of them cheered when I delivered my applause lines. How many of those people would remember me a month later? I couldn't say.

The lack of proper opinion polling was frustrating. Any employee prefers to work in an environment where they can measure the results of their efforts. At least in the military I could compare my results against mission objectives, although that started to get a little depressing by the end. Doing campaign appearances without any kind of voting afterward just left things in limbo.

The most satisfying rallies were actually the ones where the communists tried to disrupt us. Weiss and the rest had gotten the hang of using commercial orbs for physical enhancements, so they were able to work with some of our burlier volunteers to make quick work of the "red army." If there's anything more satisfying than punching communists in the face it's delegating the work to somebody else so that you can watch them be punched in the face more efficiently.

With Weiss, Koenig, and Neuman fully on board we were also seeing a steady trickle of former members of the 203rd showing up to join the security auxiliary. It strained our finances a little bit to take them on board, but I figured it was worth it to have more capable aerial mages under contract. We were starting to have a fairly formidable force under our command if we could ever get hold of proper computation orbs.

The big news came seven months into my brand awareness campaign: the four parties that made up the coalition government had had a big falling out. An election was scheduled as required by the constitution. I had one more month to do everything I could before my efforts would be evaluated whether I was ready or not.

ooOoo


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: The quest for a quiet life continues._

ooOoo

The situation at the top of the polls didn't have much to do with me, but I still felt obligated to keep track of it. If nothing else, as a politician I had to be able to have an intelligent conversation about politics. I could turn most topics into fodder for denunciations of the Francois, but I couldn't rant and rave about specific leadership failures without knowing who the leaders were.

The previous ruling coalition consisted of four parties. Three could be considered center-left and one center-right. Such simple labels concealed quite a bit of complexity. The political spectrum of Germania was not nearly as tame as modern day Japan. If we're talking about the common denominator of these center parties it was that they wanted the war to end and they wanted the Germanian territory to be governed by a republic.

Otherwise, two of the center-left parties could be described as different flavors of socialism, one was a religious party, and the center-right party was a massive hodge podge of disparate groups. Between them the center-left parties had about forty percent of the vote while the center-right party was the largest single party at around twenty percent.

It was the center-right party that had blown up the coalition. They had felt that the center-left parties were having things all their own way in terms of day to day governance. It seemed to me that they were banking on some kind of electoral miracle if they wanted to put their own majority together but, of course, that was nothing to do with me. I just had to focus on appealing to my own group of fanatics so that I could secure a cushy job.

To that end, the only thing I could do was to pick up the pace on the campaign trail. I gave speeches every day and often twice a day. I repeated my stump speech so many times that I started hearing it in my sleep. I also grew more familiar than I would have liked with the Germanian railway's sleeper cars. The nicest thing I could say about that is that it was more comfortable than sleeping near the front.

Dressler showed his worth in the run up to the election. He had been organizing local chapters of the Germanian Workers' Party every time I stopped in at a large town. I had mostly believed that he meant for these organizations to arrange local get-togethers and to help promote future speeches. With an election on the schedule, though, their true purpose became clear: voter turnout.

In this day and age retail politics was the only game in town. It wasn't possible to broadcast a speech to millions of people. I had been pushing for efficiency of scale as best I could by drawing crowds numbering in the dozens. To turn those crowds into votes, though, there was no substitute for a knock on the door and a friendly reminder from a familiar face. Dressler set that part of the plan in motion while I focused on wowing as many crowds as I could. Once we had done all we could there was nothing to do but wait for the results.

I had turned eighteen a few months before the election, so I was eligible to vote. The Germanian Republic had adopted the trendy rule that anybody old enough to vote was old enough to hold office, so I was qualified there, too. The election was done by party list. Voters did not vote for individual representatives, but rather for the party that they supported. The party would then allocate however many seats it won to individuals of its choosing.

That structure was why I had worked so hard to raise our brand awareness. In this system there was no such thing as recruiting qualified candidates or impressing voters with a particular representative's biography. The only thing that mattered was the party.

In the end, the top of the polls saw a dramatic shift. The three center-left parties between them earned an outright majority of two hundred and fifty two seats in the four-hundred and eighty member Federal Diet. The center-right party that had kicked off the whole election saw its support plummet from ninety-eight all the way down to forty-five seats. Two other parties picked up those lost seats and together with the absorption of some bottom feeding parties began to jockey for position as leaders of the opposition.

Further down in the polls, the Germanian Workers' Party clocked in with forty seats! Well, almost. Thirty-seven to be exact. Quite a jump from the four seats that we used to possess.

The results exceeded my expectations. I had thought it would take years before we approached so close to our ten percent ceiling of forty-eight seats. I could only account for it as hard work paying off. It was a little alarming that so many people were willing to vote for such an extreme course of action, but I had prepared myself for that before I started on my new career.

The day after the results came out was more or less one long party. I did have one nervous moment when I contemplated how we were going to find thirty-six other people to serve as representatives, but Dressler came through with the excellent suggestion of allocating seats to local chapters in proportion to their success in turning out the vote. Not only did this bring in a good mix of motivated people but it would also provide a nice incentive for them to do their best in the following elections.

One nice surprise that came along with our success was a significant increase in donations. I was a little worried that we were being asked to sell out our values. Not that I had anything against accepting money in exchange for services, but if I were forced to back down on all of the commitments I'd been making then the voters would drop me in a hot minute. Our base of support was not made up of stable people. If they sensed even the hint of betrayal they would move on to the next firebrand in line.

Fortunately, as I learned after consulting with Dressler, it seemed that many local businesses liked to contribute to any parties that seemed like viable opponents to the communists. They didn't seek any particular favor from us and probably didn't care much whether or not we succeeded in implementing our own policies, but they were happy to spend some money if they thought it would hurt the commies.

I could understand. When that money was flowing into my pockets I didn't just understand the sentiment, I positively celebrated it.

Once we came down from the flush of victory the next order of business was the slightly tedious process of settling in to my new office space. The most surprising event to come out of that week was when the ruling coalition actually sought me out to see if I would be interested in joining up and expanding their majority. Of course, they were unwilling to budge from their policies of scrupulous adherence to the treaty of Triano and ever-increasing print runs of paper money, so I was forced to decline. My voters had supported me on the basis of my angry denunciation of those policies. If I wanted to keep my phony-baloney job I was going to have to stick to my guns.

On the first day after the new Diet was convened party leaders were given an opportunity to make some remarks. I took advantage of the chance to deliver a thundering broadside against the government's inflationary policies, complete with the analogy of the treaty of Triano as a boat anchor that the government was determined to cling to as the country drowned. When I finished I received a nice round of applause from my party and general indifference from everybody else.

I sat down with a grin on my face. After this, the only piece of official business left for me was to vote against everything the government put forward in opposition to our party's platform. In other words, to vote no for just about everything. Actually, that wouldn't be the entirety of my duties: I would also be cashing my paychecks and converting them into foreign currency.

Now that's a proper government job.

Later that day I had just settled into my new office when Visha announced a visit from an old friend. General Lergen, now Secretary General of the armed forces, had dropped by for a chat. I was a little surprised that he would make my office one of his very first stops after the formation of the new government, but I suppose that's the effects of sentiment. It never hurts to have friends in high places.

I welcomed him into the room with a genuine smile.

"General Lergen," I said. "Congratulations on your promotion."

The gold braid on his shoulders looked natural on him. He was young for the position, but he carried himself with confidence and panache. Combined with his always sharp appearance and I'm sure he was the talk of the secretarial pool. Although, come to think of it, I had never heard of any rumors of him messing around like that during the war. A quick glance at his ring finger confirmed my recollection that he wasn't married.

"Congratulations are in order to you as well," he said. "Your performance in this recent election was remarkable."

"I was simply fortunate that the people were interested in what I had to say," I replied, somewhat absently. I'll admit I was looking at him in a new light. If I was going to be a career politician then remaining single would eventually pose a problem. Similarly, if General Lergen was a "confirmed bachelor" then he must have been growing tired of certain inconvenient questions from high society. Maybe we could help each other out.

Of course, I couldn't just bring up such a thing in our first conversation.

"I try to meet with important members of political leadership in order to apprise them of our military situation," he said, taking the lead while I was lost in thought, "though I suspect you could deliver this briefing as well as I could."

I automatically straightened up and pulled myself together. Even if I wasn't in the military any more I couldn't kick my old habits when responding to a request for a strategic analysis.

"In terms of our officially recognized forces, we should be a match for the other states carved out of the Empire. Otherwise, we could perhaps hold off an invasion from Dacia if we're lucky," I said. "Against any kind of modern invading army we would be fortunate if organized resistance lasted a week. Military operations outside of our borders are out of the question."

"Just so," he said. Then he cocked his head, looking slightly puzzled. "Officially recognized forces?"

"The military forces permitted to us under the treaty of Triano," I said.

Most of the military history books that I read back in Japan were focused on war time. I was a little fuzzy on what had happened immediately after the first world war, but I was pretty sure that the country in our situation had started working its way around the treaty as soon as it could. It was the logical thing to do. For a state as steeped in military culture as the Empire it was almost an automatic response.

"Those are all of our forces," Lergen said, sticking to the official line.

"Of course," I said. I suppose he had to be cautious if he wasn't sure that I was on board. Or perhaps he was being considerate of my reputation as a stickler for the rules. "By the way, although we did not join the ruling coalition, please rest assured that our party will vote in favor of any military appropriations that come before the Diet."

"We don't require much funding these days, as we abide by the restrictions of the treaty," he said, putting some emphasis on the last few words.

"Of course," I said again. I tried winking at him so that he would know that I understood what he was trying to say.

"Violating the terms of the treaty could lead to war," he said.

Now he was just playing devil's advocate. It was a little irritating to be tested as though I were still his subordinate, but it made sense that he couldn't just hand out state secrets willy nilly.

"Everything could lead to war," I replied. "For example, maintaining a military too weak to throw out invaders."

"I don't want to be the man to start the next war," he said.

"We didn't want the last war either," I said. "I think that to start the second world war would be a terrible crime... but to lose it would be a terrible mistake."

He sat back for a moment, lost in thought. "I wondered when I read about your speeches... you truly don't fear another war, do you?"

I couldn't help but laugh at that. Even if he felt he had to test me, it was clear that he was going easy on me. I'd talked military strategy off and on with the man for years. He never would have accepted any answer predicated on fear. Once that idea was thrown out, the answer was obvious.

"Another war is coming whether we fear it or not," I said. "The peace created by the treaty of Triano is inherently unstable. Something that can't go on forever won't. Sooner or later somebody is going to take up the challenge and try to become the hegemon of Europe."

"I... I can't refute that," he said.

High praise from a stickler like General Lergen. Unfortunately he still refused to divulge any information regarding the government's unofficial military expenditures. I figured it was on a need to know basis and I didn't need to know. I just really, really wanted to know. Ah, well, I would just have to hope that it wasn't anything too egregious. If the government truly managed to tick off the Francois, never mind a world war, they could stomp us flat by themselves.

We made small talk for a while before General Lergen took his leave. I had time to have a snack and get myself settled before my next meeting. If the first meeting had been with an old acquaintance and left me with new questions, the next meeting would be with a new acquaintance and would, I hoped, lead to some answers.

Visha's good friend, Elya, had agreed to take the day off from waitressing to come meet with me.

She came bouncing into the room right on time. I'll admit that I was feeling a bit nervous as we shook hands. I was really hoping I could persuade her to join us. The complete surprise at the polls was just one facet of the problems we faced due to our inability to dig up information about the outside world. Elya had worked in intelligence gathering during the war. By all accounts she was quite good at it until the military was forced to fire her because her history as aerial mage ran afoul of the treaty of Triano.

I had wondered sometimes during the war why Visha seemed to think that she and I had roughly similar figures. Looking at her now, I could understand where that confusion had come from if Elya was Visha's closest companion growing up. Thanks to my mild puberty I was far less hormonal than most teenagers. I was still human, though. Fortunately, years of war had left me with a decent poker face.

"It's good to meet you in person," I said. "I feel like I half know you already from Visha's stories."

It took a little effort, but I mostly managed to keep my eyes on Elya's as I led her to her seat before taking my own place behind my desk.

"I feel the same way," she replied. "If you don't mind my saying so, Visha admires you greatly, Miss Degurechaff."

"Just Tanya, please," I said. "After all, I hope to be working closely with you."

"I hope so, too," she said. She giggled, which did some interesting things to her body, while fluttering her eyelashes as well. I could see that she had what they call a naturally flirtatious personality. I could overlook it for the sake of obtaining a talented subordinate.

"What sort of work did you do during the war, exactly?" I asked.

"I developed a network of informants and for the most part kept it running smoothly," she said. "I also helped compare and analyze information retrieved from other sources."

"No direct information gathering?" I asked. I would have thought that at the very least a spy with aerial mage training would have an easier time escaping if discovered.

"Unfortunately, my appearance is too memorable," she said, turning slightly to show herself off to best advantage.

All right, enough was enough. That had to be deliberate. She was trying to get a reaction out of me. Now that this was turning into a contest of wills I couldn't allow myself to lose if I wanted to keep my self-respect. I kept my focus on her face while working through some simple math problems in my head. I couldn't remember any old baseball statistics, unfortunately. Magical formulae, though, I could run through a lot of those. Actually, wait a minute.

I broke off the impromptu staring contest and opened the drawer under my desk. I withdrew a pair of Junghans Mark Three computation orbs and slid one across the desk to Elya.

"Synchronize to that and use it for mana detection," I said.

She looked a little confused, but did as I asked. I waited a moment before using the other orb to call forth an illusion. A second copy of myself fully kitted out in the combat regalia of the 203rd mage battalion snapped into view to my side. I waited for a moment, pleased with myself, watching the first honest expression I'd seen so far appear on Elya's face as her eyes widened with shock.

"That- but- how-"

"This computation orb is trash on the battlefield," I said, "but it is built for precision work. If you structure your spells properly then no mana will leak out to be detected by others."

She stared at me for a long moment before she snapped out of it. She reached out to hand back the computation orb, but I waved her off.

"Consider it a signing bonus," I said. "Learning how to use it well will be one of your responsibilities."

She clutched the orb to her chest like a precious jewel. "Yes!"

"Ah, I may be getting ahead of myself, though. Our party is small and far from the levers of power," I said. "We will have little call for investigating matters of state for a long time. I'm a little worried that you might find our work to be beneath your talents."

"No!" she said, then paused for a moment to collect herself. She continued in a more level tone of voice. "I didn't come here just because you're a friend of a friend and a war hero. After Visha told me about your party platform I took a trip to meet with her and listen to one of your speeches. I believe in what you are doing one hundred percent!"

Another true believer. Someone with her talents could have caused all kinds of trouble at the head of her own little splinter group. It was a lucky break that I was able to hire her and turn her energy to more positive endeavors. I was a little worried that she would become disillusioned once she realized that we would never manage to break through our ceiling and win a truly significant percentage of the vote, but that was a concern for the future.

"All right then, consider yourself hired. Officially you will work for the Germanian Workers' Party as my secretary," I said. While I could draw a government salary as an elected official, employing Elya required a little creativity. Fortunately, she could use the same loophole that I had exploited for myself by working for the party rather than the government. "We've received some significant new donations thanks to our recent success. I'm told this is simply a matter of course, but I'd like to make sure our donors aren't expecting anything specific in exchange for their money. Also, I want to know if anybody who should have made a routine donation instead decided to hold on to their money."

"Understood," she replied, taking notes in a small notepad that she hadn't been holding a moment before.

"The only other external matter I would like you to look into is military spending," I said.

"Military spending?" she asked, looking up at me with some confusion in her eyes.

"Specifically, any military expenditures or activities that are prohibited by the treaty of Triano," I said.

"The government is violating the treaty?" she asked. I couldn't tell if she was more shocked or excited by the notion.

"Does General Lergen seem like a fool who would leave his country unprepared for war?" I asked.

"Ah," she said, perking up, "I see."

"Keep this investigation low key. We don't want to air military secrets in front of the whole world," I said, making a calming gesture with my arms. "General Lergen is a friend. He'll tell me about anything truly important. I'm just curious about the trump cards he's keeping close to his chest."

"Got it," she said. "That's all of the, um, external investigations?"

I nodded, then braced myself. "You know I'm not the original chairman of the Germanian Workers' Party."

"Johan Dressler was the founder and original chairman," she said, nodding. "He and members of his clique still sit on the executive board."

As expected, she had done her homework. It was always a relief to work with a competent professional. I did feel a little guilty about repaying Dressler's trust and support with suspicion, but politics is a contact sport. Watching your back is mandatory. With all the recent success of the party it would only be natural for Dressler to want to take it back over.

"He has been nothing but helpful recently," I said, "but I'd still feel better with somebody keeping an eye on him and his friends."

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. And if they aren't out to get you then they'll never find out about your paranoia. That's fine too.

ooOoo


	6. Chapter 6

_AN: A woman's work is never done._

ooOoo

While my schedule eased up after the election, I couldn't just rest on my laurels after a single electoral success. My support base was, by my own design, a bunch of crazed fanatics. As long as they believed a magical solution to Germania's problems would appear once our party cracked fifty percent then they could be counted on to vote for us. Even without a sophisticated political apparatus they would show up with tremendous turnout and enthusiasm. On the other hand, if they should ever come to doubt the magical solution or my ability to bring it about then they would drop us in the blink of an eye.

The first order of business was in maintaining my image as an obstinate revanchist chomping at the bit for war with the Francois Republic. Every opportunity that our party was given to speak in the Federal Diet was used to rail against the Francois and the treaty of Triano. Five minutes to comment on the new budget? That's five minutes spent decrying the failure to spend money on our military and allowing a treaty to override our natural right to self-defense. Two minutes to comment on a tax increase? Two minutes condemning the perfidious Francois and their gall in stealing bread off the table of hard working Germanian citizens. Thirty seconds to comment on the redesign of a postage stamp? That's time enough to repeat the obvious truth: the treaty of Triano must be destroyed.

The other politicians soon learned to ignore these speeches. Honestly, they were likely ignoring those speeches from the beginning. However, the major newspapers would report in summary form on the debates taking place in the Diet, and our new party newsletter was sure to reproduce the text of our speeches in full. The newsletter was one of the investments made possibly by our new funding; it was short and cheaply made but it served its purpose of spreading the party line to all party members.

The second prong of my strategy was to continue to raise our image throughout the country. Our most effective strategy for this continued to be to send me out on campaign. While we still couldn't afford a mass media campaign, our recent increase in funding did allow us to spend some money in order to make my speeches more effective. Specifically, we were able to begin doing some proper opinion polling.

Perhaps that was getting too full of myself. Let's just say we were doing some opinion polling.

I took a statistics class many years ago because it was the easiest way to satisfy the maths requirement for my degree. So at one point I knew at least some of the math behind opinion polling. Unfortunately that knowledge left my head shortly after the final exam. At this point all I could remember was the very basics.

If you have a bag full of a million marbles and you want to know what color they are then you don't have to take out all one million of them. You get a pretty good idea of the percentages after you take out a hundred of them and the numbers don't change much at all after one thousand. I think. I might have just been saying one hundred and one thousand because they were round numbers. Well, we'd make the samples as large as we could manage in any event.

I did remember that the sample had to be random. To stick with the marbles, if marbles of one color were heavier than the others and you were drawing from the top of the bag then naturally your final numbers would be wrong. For opinion polling that meant taking opinions by phone was right out. Owning a phone was still something of a status symbol in Germania. No matter how many people we called up we would still be getting our answers from "people who own telephones" rather than "people who vote," which would skew the numbers.

That meant that to get good data we would need to talk to people in person. Well, I say "we" but the key to the whole operation for me was that I could delegate it to other people. Just because I was able to coordinate the movement of supplies and people through the train system thanks to the military's logistics training didn't mean that I enjoyed doing that kind of thing.

I told Elya to think of it like using spies to scout out an enemy position. Just as it was dangerous to launch an attack without knowing anything about the enemy's defenses, it was dangerous for a politician to give a big speech without knowing what the crowd was thinking. Honestly, though, I was only pushing the task onto her because I thought she would handle it well. Work is never slow for a competent subordinate.

Elya earned herself even more work in the future by doing a wonderful job organizing the polling operation. As it turned out, there were a large number of young women out there who were happy to do some light work in exchange for pocket money. The lousy Germanian economy really worked in our favor there. The pollsters would be sent to talk to random passersby or knock on random doors. Every fifth person, every third house, something like that. The questions they asked were pretty simple: Who did you vote for in the last election? Who would you vote for if an election were held today? Do you feel like the country is on the right track or the wrong track? Are you better off than you were a year ago? What do you feel is the most important issue facing the country today?

We developed a routine. Over the weekend a team would be sent out to poll our target location. A different group would tabulate the resulting information from Monday through Thursday. Finally, I would head out to give speeches over the next weekend. I never really changed my underlying message, but I certainly changed the emphasis depending on the mood of my audience. Were they anxious over the economy? I would denounce the greedy Francois and their demands for reparations that were crushing the average Germanian. Were they worried about national security? Obviously we needed to build up our military to fight off the foreign menace.

So it went. It was interesting to see the polling data and things seemed to be going well. Of course we wouldn't really know if everything was working until the next election.

The most interesting bit of work that Elya did over that first year was not the polling, though, but rather a meeting she arranged nine months in. I didn't know quite what to expect when she insisted on an urgent meeting with a Dr. Wilhelm Fischer, but she'd earned my trust by that point. I met Dr. Fischer in my office with my most professional smile firmly in place.

"It's true," he said, sounding a little star-struck as he glanced back at Elya, "you do work for the Argent Silver."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Dr. Fischer," I said, keeping my tone level. This guy had better be more than some dedicated fan. "Elya said you had something to tell me?"

"Yes! Those fools wouldn't listen, but I know you'll appreciate what I have to say! A genius sees the worth of what's laid before them," he said, before quieting down as he visibly wrestled himself under control.

I felt my heart sink just a little. It was obvious that the weedy man in front of me wasn't a medical doctor. I was starting to feel the too-familiar sensation of listening to an unstable scientist talk about their work. It seemed he had been rejected by everybody sensible associated with the government and was therefore turning to the fringe party of crackpots for support.

Perhaps he sensed my skepticism. When he started speaking again his tone was much more measured.

"We all thought the Empire would win the war. Even at the end, with enemy armies drawing nearer by the day, we thought we would win," he said. "The military had pulled off miracles so many times before. You had performed so many miracles yourself. We thought we would win, somehow."

I could share his feeling of regret. Unfortunately, in this era of warfare victory didn't come down to individual heroism but rather to the cold calculus of industrial capacity. Although, to be fair, the other side had their heroes as well.

He took my silence as permission to continue.

"It was in the last month of the war. Dr. Schugel had a dream. He told us it was a message from God," he said, and all of a sudden I had a whole new sinking feeling in my stomach. Anything associated with Dr. Schugel meant trouble. "He told us to gather up the technical documentation for the type-97 computation orb. He told us to gather up the irreplaceable mechanical components. Then he sent the vital personnel into hiding. The next day there was an enormous explosion and the entire Elenium factory complex was destroyed."

I looked at Elya for confirmation. She nodded before explaining. "The complex was reported to be destroyed by an enemy bombing raid and most of the people working there as dead. Even within military high command that was what we believed had happened. The belief was so widespread that our enemies even accepted the excuse as to why we couldn't hand over the designs for the dual core technology."

I stared at her in shock. I knew the basic story of the manufacture of the type-97. When Dr. Schugel built the quad core type-95 he had only managed to succeed through literal divine intervention. The engineering team wouldn't be able to replicate that success if they spent the rest of their lives trying. However, studying the type-95 gave them a massive leg up on building the dual core type-97. That leg up was on top of the technology advantage already enjoyed by the Empire. The end result was that even at the end of the war the type-97 was still superior to anything our enemies could field.

"So nobody has dual core technology any more?" I asked. "Wait, what about all of the computation orbs we turned in at the end of the war?"

"The stockpile was destroyed in a massive explosion," Elya said. "The investigation concluded that residual solidified mana from your type-95 destabilized after the orb was away from you for a long period. That caused some kind of cascading reaction that turned most of a supply depot into a smoking crater."

I had mixed feelings at that. On the one hand, it was a terrible waste of computation orbs. On the other hand, if Being X and all of his works were consumed in massive explosions then a few computation orbs was a small price to pay. Especially computation orbs that were destined to fall into enemy hands.

"I wouldn't say that nobody has the technology," Dr. Fischer said. "As I tried to explain to that fool Lergen, if my team is given a secure place to work and even a modicum of financial support then we can rebuild the type-97 production line."

"General Lergen turned you down?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Adding flight mage capability to the current Germanian army wouldn't be enough to bring it even close to parity with the Francois or even the Entente military, but it would at least force them to think twice before committing to an invasion. I was surprised that he would pass it up.

"He insisted that computation orb production would violate that damned treaty," Dr. Fischer said.

Elya spoke up as well. "I only discovered Dr. Fischer after he came storming out of General Lergen's office."

I tapped my chin for a moment as I tried to figure things out. Flight mage capabilities would give the military a huge boost. It would have to be kept secret, but that would be simple enough. It was impossible to keep ship building secret, of course, and even things like tanks and artillery were built in large industrial facilities that were easy for enemy spies to keep track of. Computation orbs, on the other hand, were small clockwork devices. Design and testing were quite difficult but the actual production didn't require much more than a watchmaker would need.

On second thought, the sheer concentrated power of flight mages could be a double edged sword. In order to keep things secret Lergen would want to keep the project known to as few people as possible. Ideally he would hand it off to a single trusted subordinate. But if a single person controlled the production and distribution of the computation orbs it wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that they controlled the strongest and most mobile portion of the country's military. Could it be that General Lergen didn't have a subordinate that he trusted with that kind of power?

The highest levels of the military were fraught with politics. I certainly wouldn't want to swim in those waters, even if I was now a professional politician. But if I assume that General Lergen didn't have anybody working for him that he wanted to put in charge of such a project, then what could he do? He couldn't directly assign it to me since I'm no longer under his command, but... ah, I see.

"In that case we should be able to support your work," I said. "I'm sure Elya can make the appropriate arrangements."

"You will?" he asked, before his eyes lit up. "You will! I knew you would see further than that idiot Lergen-"

"Watch yourself, Dr. Fischer," I said. He fell silent, looking a little shocked at the warning in my tone. Good to know that I still had it. "Do you really think General Lergen doesn't know you're here?"

Elya was the first to pick up on what I was saying. "You think General Lergen meant for this to happen? Why?"

"General Lergen has his own concerns. I wouldn't presume to guess at his thoughts," I said. It was foolish to speculate without the relevant information. "I simply intend to carry out this task well in order to lessen his burden. Dr. Fischer, how many orbs will you be able to produce?"

He pulled himself together as he thought over the technical question. "Once we are properly equipped we should be able to produce one, perhaps two orbs per month."

I nodded in satisfaction. That wouldn't be enough to equip a proper army any time soon, but at the very least we would be able to put together a guerilla resistance force that could make an occupying army bleed a great deal. Not that I expected things to come to that, but it was better to have the orbs and not need them than to need them and not have them.

On the topic of magical irregulars, it was a little scary to think what might have happened if I weren't around to field this one for General Lergen. If Dr. Fischer struck out on his own and was able to recruit a bit of magical help then he would have been able to put together quite the illegal operation. A bunch of criminals armed with high end magical orbs could rampage freely in a country without aerial mages. It was lucky I was in the right place to help out.

It did occur to me that this could all be some kind of long term plan by Being X. That dream of Dr. Schugel's did sound awfully suspicious. On the whole, though, this seemed just too helpful for one of that bastard's schemes. Being X had never been shy about attaching strings to his "help" in the past. For something like this to drop in my lap when I hadn't uttered a single word in prayer for over a year was more likely the result of simple good fortune. Dr. Schugel had turned into quite the religious fanatic after he built the type-95. He was the type to attribute any old bad dream or ominous feeling to divine intervention entirely of his own initiative.

"Elya, keep the orbs in a safe place for now. We need to keep this absolutely secret," I said. "Remember that all of us, and General Lergen too, we are all working for the good of the Germanian people."

Even if I was just rationalizing my decision, in the end the chance was too good to pass up.

ooOoo

There was no such thing as a dumb aerial mage. This was especially true on the Rhine front, where as Elya knew from personal experience that any aerial mage who had scraped through their training on raw talent or blind luck would soon perish in the brutally impartial meat grinder of combat.

Elya had expected Tanya von Degurechaff to be smart.

While her friend Visha was kind-hearted, she was still a capable combat mage in her own right. She might omit criticisms out of courtesy, but she would not make up praise that she knew to be false. She wrote many letters to Elya over the course of the war and only ever referred to her superior officer in the most glowing terms.

Elya had expected Tanya von Degurechaff to be a military genius.

Even so, a military commander was expected to think in a certain way. The military encouraged its leaders to think in direct and practical terms. And aerial mages were inherently more effective when they were collected together into an overwhelming force and sent to crash into the enemy.

Elya had expected Tanya von Degurechaff, once off the battlefield, to be a straightforward person.

After reviewing her files-or, at least, the files Elya was able to access-Elya compiled the picture of someone who in another time would have been labeled a hero rather than a genius. Every action spoke of self-abnegation and a complete devotion to the good of the Empire. Not only that, but mission record after mission record described impossible deeds carried out with such natural ease that they eventually became routine.

If the Empire had won the war then Tanya von Degurechaff could have stepped into the Chancellor's position as easily as turning over her hand. Unfortunately, nations were not so kind to failed heroes. It seemed ridiculous to speak of Degurechaff as a failure when her record showed nothing but a string of success, but Elya knew she wouldn't dispute the characterization. After all, the Empire lost the war.

Major Degurechaff could easily have disappeared into a sinecure after the war. She had received no fewer than three offers to act as a highly paid lobbyist for military manufacturers. Elya had seen the letters, thinly veiled as a sop to military regulation as invitations to "tour manufacturing facilities" and "discuss the future of the nation." Each of them had received a polite yet distant reply turning down their offer. By the time Visha was able to meet back up with her commanding officer she was living in an orphanage and tied up with a tiny and irrelevant political party.

At first her behavior seemed like the pure stubborn pig-headedness of somebody who refused to acknowledge that the world had changed with the loss of the war. The retired Major refused to make any practical accommodations to the new world and instead seemed intent on re-fighting old battles. It wasn't until the results of the election came out and shocked Elya out of her complacency that she was able to take a step back and see the larger picture.

Major Degurechaff had formed a battalion of flight mages in her own image and led it from victory to victory on the battlefield. Chairman Degurechaff had taken a small political party, reformed it in her own image, and led it to stunning new heights of success after only a year of work. Chancellor Degurechaff... if given a chance to reform the country in her own image, who knew what she could accomplish?

During the darkest hours of the war Elya had held out hope that some great man would come striding out of the pages of the history books the save the Empire in its time of need. Now she was starting to think that the great woman the Empire needed had been there all along. The great tragedy was that she was never given the free hand she needed in order to save the day. On the other hand, as Elya gradually came to realize, it might not be too late to save the Empire. Indeed, a reborn Empire rising from the ashes of the old order would be all the stronger for surviving the current difficulties.

Of course, in order for that to happen everybody had to do their part. Elya pulled her compact from her handbag and flipped it open to check her appearance. Looking back at her from the mirror's surface was a slender brunette proudly wearing the armband of the Germanian Workers' Party. Elya nodded in satisfaction and tucked her compact back away next to the computation orb that was maintaining her current look. She straightened her clothes out one last time before knocking on the door.

A moment later the door opened to reveal the familiar figure of Johan Dressler. His mouth twisted in a sour grin as he looked her up and down.

"I suppose it's my turn then."

"I don't know what you could possibly mean, Mr. Dressler," Elya replied. Despite his grumbling he didn't resist as she pushed past him and led the way to his sitting room.

"After the third of my former colleagues decided to retire the day after being visited by a young woman," he said, "it was hard not to notice a trend."

"But I don't want you to retire, Mr. Dressler," Elya said, pouting slightly. Somebody had been saying things they shouldn't be saying. She'd have to make time to look into it after this conversation. "I just want to discuss the future of your role in the party."

"Oh?"

"You've done a terrific job developing the theoretical foundation for the party's platform. I hope you can continue to do this valuable work," Elya said. Dressler relaxed slightly, only to stiffen up again as she fixed him with a serious look. "I'm sure we both agree that the most important goal of the Germanian Workers' Party is to install Chairman Degurechaff in a position of national leadership. Only she can restore the Germanian people to their proper place in the world."

"Of course."

"To that end, the party's fundamental principle must be to act according to our leader's will," Erya said, smiling brightly. "So anything like a party platform or position statement will naturally be purely advisory until approved by Chairman Degurechaff."

Dressler looked at her for a long moment. Finally he sighed, all the tension draining out of his frame. "I understand."

"Wonderful!" Erya chirped, before settling down. "I should also retrieve the files relating to your recent organization efforts. There's no need to burden a genius theoretician such as yourself with such grubby practical matters."

"How thoughtful," Dressler said, a wry twist of the lips betraying his inner thoughts. Still, despite his discontent he stood readily enough and left to retrieve the files she requested.

Elya was left alone for a moment to savor her victory. She felt a bit unsatisfied. The whole conversation had gone much more smoothly than she had anticipated. She hadn't had to resort to even the simplest means of more forceful persuasion that had been needed in order to convince Dressler's associates to retire. A moment later the answer hit her and it was her turn to reproach herself with a wry smile.

Dressler had been known to spend quite a bit of time together with Chairman Degurechaff. Obviously the man's spirit had been broken long before. She should have realized that the chairman wouldn't have let an independent power block appear within the confines of the party if she didn't have firm control over its higher reaches. In fact, Elya had most likely just stumbled over a long term operation meant to draw traitors out into the light and proceeded to demolish it in an exceedingly clumsy fashion.

She should have known better than to second guess the chairman.

Ah, well. What's done was done. One of the nice things about working for Chairman Degurechaff was that she never resorted to micro-management. As long as the results were fine the chairman wouldn't fuss too much about the process. Elya's actions today would lead to a more secure grip over the party in the future, which should be a good thing. She'd just have to set up her own methods to smoke out internal dissent. Perhaps a new organization would be needed. She'd figure it out. She would need to do an excellent job if she wanted the chairman to overlook today's little misstep.

ooOoo


	7. Chapter 7

_AN: Have to have a little magic in a magical girl fic._

ooOoo

The year 1933 was a tough one for Germania. Two years after the end of the great war and one year after the election that brought about my minor rise to political prominence, it was also the year that the first reparations bill came due. The government paid, of course. They didn't want to be invaded. I couldn't blame them. Well, in my heart I couldn't blame them. I blamed them quite a bit in my public speeches.

The real problem wasn't just the fact that they paid but the way that they paid. It wasn't like they could just write a check. The reparations had to be paid in precious goods and foreign currency. The government decided that the best way to purchase such things was by printing out a massive stack of new paper currency. Of course, this meant that the economy was hit with a big jolt of inflation. Thanks to inflation, the government's tax revenue couldn't meet its spending needs, so the printing press was fired up once more. Naturally, this lead to more inflation.

The first iteration of this cycle took four months to really kick in. The mark lost about half its value in that time. It was a brutal hit to the economy. For me it was a vindication of everything that I had been saying about fiscal policy, but it was hard to be too happy about it. The worst part was that the government was sticking to its guns and showed no signs of doing anything but running the printing presses even harder.

The fundamental problem with what they were doing was the failure to recognize that paper money doesn't have any intrinsic value. In other words, printing money isn't by itself a productive use of resources. Money only has worth when people are willing to give you things in exchange for it, and massive over printing did nothing but drive down the value of the mark. It's possible for countries to make a little profit by printing money that's worth more than the raw materials used to make it, but to try to run a modern government off of seigniorage is like trying to cover a household budget by picking up change off of the sidewalk.

There wasn't much I could do about all this craziness other than condemn it from the sidelines. Our polling showed a sharp increase in the number of people concerned about the economy, but there wasn't much they could do. The governing coalition showed an admirable group spirit and stuck together through the crisis, so the next national election was still more than two years away. Short of an armed revolution the only thing that people could do was to take practical steps to protect themselves from inflation.

Some of the more rural areas were starting to retreat to a barter system. It was practical, but it was also depressing to see what had been a first rate market economy break down like that. I had the party shift around some of its resources so that in the worst hit areas we would provide food to rally attendees. It was only right to try to cushion the damage caused by the awful economy. The fact that it increased attendance at my speeches was a nice side effect.

The party's coffers were doing nicely. We were continuing to see a steady stream of donations. Actually, things had even improved after Elya took Weiss and his boys on a tour of factories that were avoiding any association with us for fear of communist reprisals. Once the commies had been thoroughly stomped on we saw a marked increase in donations.

The matter of computation orb construction was also proceeding smoothly. With the nation's economy fraying around the edges it was a good thing, too. Once we had a decent number of orbs stockpiled I called for a team-building retreat with the aerial mage veterans of the party in a remote area of the Germanian Alps.

If the situation ever got desperate enough that we had to use the computation orbs in earnest I would need my men to be fighting fit.

ooOoo

Elya could feel the cold air biting at her lungs every time she took a breath. It was only early fall, but the weather high up in the mountains was no joke. There was no moon tonight, and the pitch darkness combined with the chill to create a truly ominous atmosphere.

Despite that, Elya did not fidget. She did not tuck her hands into her armpits. She didn't cup her hands in front of her face and breathe into them for warmth. Her attention, like everybody else's, was fixed on Chairman Degurechaff.

The chairman had her hands clasped behind her back as she surveyed her troops from the stage. Though she was perched on top of several picnic tables that had been hastily pushed together, her bearing and demeanor gave it the same weight as the reviewing stand in front of the Imperial Palace.

She had changed her outfit for this evening. For her public appearances the chairman almost always wore a white dress underneath a short military jacket. The story was that this was originally due to her restricted wardrobe at the time she first joined the Germanian Workers' Party, but Elya thought there was a deeper reason lurking behind that explanation. Certainly her look had become a rather iconic symbol for the party as a whole. Today, though, she was aiming to send a different message: her clothes looked like nothing so much as a standard aerial mage's uniform with the rank insignia removed.

The men of the security auxiliary, all veterans of then-Major Degurechaff's command, certainly took notice of the change. Elya could hear the murmur sweeping through the ranks from where she stood. At the chairman's direction she was in a position of honor at the front of the crowd, but it was still easy enough to hear the tone of anticipation and excitement in their voices.

Chairman Degurechaff affected not to notice the chatter, apparently lost in thought as she looked out over the crowd. Her face was lit by flickering light from torches placed beside the stage. Behind her to her right were her company commanders and her faithful adjutant, while behind her and to her left a drop cloth covered an unidentified object. For a moment Elya was struck by the strange situation. Where most women her age would look at these men for protection or a romantic partner, Degurechaff carried about her a perfectly natural air of command. When she finally spoke there was no trace of uncertainty or hesitation in her voice.

"I'm afraid I've let you all grow fat and lazy these last couple of years," she said, a smile on her face. "Beating up communists is fun and all, but to be honest it's just not that much of a challenge, is it?"

She paused for a moment as the men laughed. Elya could have sworn that for some reason there was more anxiety than good humor in that laughter.

"Unfortunately, an aerial mage with his feet on the ground is just a sword rusting away in its sheath," she continued. "The good news is that it's never too late to turn things around."

She turned and whipped the drop cloth away with a flourish. Standing revealed in the torchlight was a small display table. On top of the table were thirteen gleaming computation orbs. Even having known they existed, the sight of so much military grade hardware in one place still sent a thrill down Erya's spine.

The effect on the men was much more pronounced. There was a moment of utter silence before a burst of excited babble swept through the crowd. Degurechaff gave them a few breaths of time to get the reaction out of their system before holding her hands up and returning the night to silence.

"The fact that these computation orbs exist is a secret that is more important than all of our lives," she said. She took a moment to sweep her gaze over the crowd. Something about the look in her eyes made Elya believe she was ready to execute anybody on the spot who showed signs of taking this secret lightly. After a nervous moment passed she seemed to find the men's attitude to her satisfaction and gave a slight nod.

"Of course if these ever need to be used in earnest it will be in a situation where the survival of the country is at stake. Accordingly, anybody issued an orb for combat must be the best aerial mage possible," she said, before shaking her head. "No, that isn't good enough. To be issued an orb you will have to be better than you believe is possible."

"I have always regretted how the pressure of the war cut short our training," she said, almost talking to herself. "While the current circumstances are less than ideal, at least now we'll have the time to train properly."

Elya couldn't help but notice the nervous tension that suddenly swept over the crowd. If Degurechaff noticed the change in mood she didn't so much as change her expression in response.

"We'll begin with some simple formation flying. Our special guest will be recording today's activities for after action review, so try not to embarrass me too badly," she said, pointing at Elya. "Weiss, Neuman, Koenig."

She tossed each of her captains a computation orb as she called out their name. That done, she affixed her own orb in place and disappeared up into the night sky, soon followed by the other three. For her part, Elya made her way over to the observation equipment that had been stationed behind the stage and began to bring it on line.

The chairman had gotten them a state of the art piece of gear. Elya supposed that air control monitors weren't in great demand in a country where aerial mages had been outlawed. The sheer number of switches and dials was a bit intimidating but Elya had been trained to use this machinery. Although she had never had a chance to use it in earnest, following the startup procedures from the manual seemed to work well enough.

Powered by her civilian grade computation orb, the equipment was able to display an abstract holographic presentation of the airspace around them. It could also toggle over to show a visual display of the active mana sources it was tracking. All of the relevant data would be stored for later playback. Elya frowned as she took in the initial display. A single dot traveling at 300 miles per hour while swerving wildly through the night sky. Perhaps she hadn't started the machine properly after all.

"That's strange," Elya said. She started checking over the settings she had entered into the machine. She stopped when a soft hand landed on top of her own. She looked up to see her old friend Visha humming thoughtfully as she studied the display.

"You have to adjust the setting to display each mana signature in a different color," Visha said after a moment, leaning forward to flip a few switches.

As a result of the change the single white dot turned into four separate dots of amber, red, blue, and green, all overlapping as they darted around on the display. Elya nodded in thanks as she thought over the possibilities. She had thought that formation flying was just for air shows, but if it was possible to throw off an enemy response for even a few minutes on a battlefield then this formation could be quite useful indeed.

However, there was one thing that hadn't changed.

"Is the speed reading accurate?" Elya asked. Most mages topped out around 250 miles per hour. While she had heard that the 203rd could go faster, it was a bit hard to believe the size of the disparity she was seeing.

"It should be," Visha said, nodding. "She can't really push the pace until they're flying straight."

Elya raised an eyebrow, but before she could say anything she was distracted by the sight of the four dots diving straight toward the ground. Seconds later the flying aerial mages came into sight, and it was only thanks to Elya's own magically enhanced reflexes that she was able to see them clearly as they flashed by only inches above the stage. Degurechaff was in the lead with a smile on her face. Weiss's face was a study in concentration a few inches away from her left elbow, while Neuman was in a similar position to her right. Koenig's face was a few inches back from her boots. They were over the stage and gone in an instant, disappearing into the forest surrounding the clearing.

Elya's hair was whipped into disarray from their passing, providing a visceral confirmation of the number she saw when she glanced down at the display: 350 miles per hour. The watching crowd broke into a raucous cheer. Elya couldn't help but chew on her lip.

"Is that safe?" Elya asked.

Visha didn't answer for a long moment. Worried, Elya glanced over at her friend in time to see her shrug.

"Compared to what?"

Chastened, Elya turned her attention back to the monitoring equipment. It was easy to forget that a combat mage had a different sense of danger than a normal person. Elya was proud of the work she had done during the war, but there was no denying that she hadn't been put through the same level of sheer violence as those serving on the front lines.

A moment later the dots shot out of the forest, tearing upwards at tremendous speed. In seconds they had reached the usual flight ceiling of six thousand feet and continued onward without hesitation through eight thousand feet to nine thousand and even ten thousand before leveling out and again iterating through aerobatic maneuvers.

"How long can they stay up there without any oxygen tanks?" Elya asked. The air that high was dangerously thin. Especially for somebody performing aerobic activities. It wasn't a place where humans could survive without special equipment.

"It's a spell. The Type-97 allows for a lot more parallel casting than a standard orb. That reminds me," Visha said, before turning and walking a few steps and waving to get the men's attention. "Don't forget to synchronize the mana cycle on the oxygen spell with your breathing!"

Elya shook her head, irritated with herself. She should have remembered that. It was in the files. It was just that it was one thing to read about the exploits of the 203rd and something else entirely to watch them play out in front of her. She had settled back down by the time Visha returned to look at the display over her shoulder.

The four dots had finally separated. Each was following its own erratic path and seemed to be surrounded by sensor ghosts. Elya frowned for a moment before she figured it out. Decoys. High speed, erratic flight, oxygen processing, and independent decoys, all at the same time. It seemed the stories really were true.

The amber dot suddenly stopped in its path before flying directly over toward another the blue dot. The two of them froze in place while the other two dots continued their evasive maneuvers. In an attempt to figure out what was going on Elya toggled over to the visual display. She could just make out a large blob and a small blob against a dark background. The two of them seemed to be talking. If she had to guess, the large blob looked like he was in trouble.

"What's going on?"

"Koenig," Visha said, shaking her head. "He gets sloppy with his high altitude decoys sometimes. She really isn't letting anything slide today."

They watched the display together, growing increasingly uncomfortable as the chewing out continued. Elya thought about speaking up but bit her tongue. It wasn't her place to interfere. That didn't keep her from sagging in relief when Visha broke the silence.

"I should probably say something," Visha said, before grabbing the handheld microphone attached to the monitoring station and toggling it on. "01, I have the second group ready to go. We can begin on your approval."

There was another long pause. Elya could see a definite reaction from the smaller blob on the screen, confirming her guess that it was indeed Chairman Degurechaff.

"Negative. I will be leading each group personally," Degurechaff said, her voice slightly clouded with static. The channel didn't close with the end of her statement, though the rest of what she said didn't seem to be directed at the microphone. "If you can't dodge properly without some extra motivation, then fine! We'll try it your way!"

The screen dissolved into a mass of static. Elya flipped back over to the abstract display and saw the blue dot frantically evading a torrent of magical emissions pouring out from the amber dot. Her first thought was surprise that the chairman would disregard the chance of discovery. It was true that they were in a remote area and would only be detected if a long range mana detection array were pointed at them specifically, but even that was more of a risk than she thought Degurechaff had been willing to take. Elya's second thought was concern for Koenig's well-being as the barrage continued.

"Is she trying to kill him?" Elya asked.

"No. Look, he's still moving under his own power," Visha said, pointing to the blue light on the display screen. "Even when the Major loses her temper she usually has herself under control."

Then-Major Degurechaff's temper and penchant for rather extreme actions were both infamous throughout the military. If not for her sheer military brilliance either trait could have gotten her in trouble. Elya's first thought was to reject Visha's comment as the biased judgment of a friend. On the other hand, for all of her flamboyance Major Degurechaff had never truly crossed the line. And she had gone from stunning success to stunning success throughout her career. Could it be that she had managed to harness her strong emotions for her own use rather than letting them use her? It would be quite a useful trait for a military commander. Perhaps even more so for a political leader.

Elya was pulled from her thoughts when the flying group made their reappearance, descending calmly onto the stage. Weiss and Neuman both looked winded. Koenig looked both tired and lightly singed. Degurechaff looked, if anything, more energetic than she had before taking off. She didn't waste any time before waving her three captains off the stage and pointing at her next targets.

"Company one, first platoon, echelon formation," Degurechaff called out. "I'll take point, Serebryakov will be at the rear. Please remember to fly around the trees instead of through them."

The chosen group took off and formed up in a staggered line before dashing off into the dark. Instead of gaining altitude they headed straight for the forest. Elya turned her attention back to the monitoring equipment.

She couldn't quite keep a wry smile off of her face as she watched the dispassionate display of ever more astounding aerobatics. Back when they were both cadets she and Visha had been graded quite similarly at the end of their flight training. Elya had wondered from time to time if she could still keep up with her old friend. The view in front of her irrefutably exposed any such thoughts as the flights of fancy that they were. The years of training and battle had forged Visha into a formidable aerial mage indeed.

That was all right, though. Elya had her own strengths. In order for the Empire to rise again they all would have to serve in their own way.

ooOoo

I hovered silently in midair, relying on my ability to sense mana passively to follow the drama going on below me. When the formation training had gotten boring I had switched things up. We were currently engaged in a twelve man aerial free for all. The only restrictions were that straying beyond the area defined by four camp fires set up down below was disqualifying and that only melee attacks were allowed.

Early on I had gotten into a scrum with three of the men. Once they were all safely knocked out of the running I had switched over from the Type-97 orb to my Junghans Mark Three, allowing my mana emissions to fade away. Since that point I had been slowly making my way upwards and moving towards the center of our little arena. In my dark clothing on this dark night, I was effectively invisible. More importantly, every mage in this fight was relying on mana sensing for night time navigation and I was completely immune to that as long as I used the Mark Three properly.

Three other competitors remained in the fight. Weiss and Neuman were engaged in a spirited dogfight, constantly contesting for position and flipping between pursuer and pursued from moment to moment. Some distance away, Serebryakov was quietly circling their fight, no doubt keeping one eye on them while using the other to watch out for me. She was moving very quietly, actually. She was emitting less than half the mana that I would have expected from an active aerial mage. It may have been a result of her practice with the Mark Three.

Weiss caught my attention by starting an Immelman, initiating a half roll with the obvious intention of flipping over once he finished and starting an attack run on Neuman. It would have been a slick move if he were a fighter plane. As it was it just made me roll my eyes.

Imperial flight training taught aerial mages to fly based more or less on the concept that they were planes who could hover. The instructors emphasized the use of the flight spell to apply thrust to the mage's center of gravity and the use of gradual shifts in the direction of the thrust in order to fly smoothly. Overall this produced mages who were able to fly in a natural fashion, moving through the air like small and nimble planes or large and clumsy birds. It was perhaps to be expected that the Empire would apply the only known paradigm in flight when training up a new branch of the military.

It was also needlessly limiting. The flight spell at its heart was the simple application of force along a chosen vector. A skilled mage could apply two or three vectors simultaneously and could shift each vector at will. An airplane applied a single vector of thrust through the use of its propeller and was only able to change its direction in accordance with the law of aerodynamics. There was no reason for an aerial mage to be so limited.

I had had an advantage from the beginning. Others had attributed to the flexibility of a young mind, but they didn't know about my personal information advantage. Besides being familiar with more technological forms of flight, I had also been exposed to my fair share of video games. The idea of a body being yanked around by unseen forces in defiance of physics in order to avoid enemy fire was not at all alien to me.

Consider a simple turn from flying straight forward to flying ninety degrees to the left. An airplane would accomplish this by using flaps and rudder control to alter the airflow over the plane. This would cause one side of the plane to effectively drag more slowly through the air, translating the straight ahead pulling force of the propeller into a rotation to the side. The plane will describe a sweeping curve through the air before flying in the chosen direction. An aerial mage operating under the standard paradigm will mimic this turn by gradually shifting the direction of the thrust provided by the flight spell, describing a similar if tighter turn. I, on the other hand, would simply cut the old thrust while applying a new thrust in the desired direction along with a second vector of thrust negating the speed I had built up in the original direction. The end result was a little herky jerky but undeniably resulted in a faster change of direction.

Experienced soldiers usually tweaked the standard training. The most common trick was to decouple thrust from body position. This could be used to goof off by goosestepping through the air or more seriously to make shots that were impossible if you were trying to mimic a bird in flight. It was very rare for a soldier to go much beyond that, though. Even the veterans of the 203rd had largely resisted my efforts to revise their basic flight skills. In a combat situation it's natural to want to stick with the tried and true, especially when it's working. In the end they seemed to group my flight abilities in with the impossibilities enabled by the Type-95 and gave up on duplicating my tricks for themselves.

Now, though, there was no imminent combat to excuse them from training properly. Weiss had just given me the convenient opportunity of an object lesson as his half roll looked set to send him flying directly under me. I did a quick calculation and then cut the power from my flight spell.

I readied the Type-97 but didn't activate it. Even with the wind whistling in my ears I was capable of detecting mana emission without a computation orb. It soon became clear that Weiss would pass beneath me before I could reach him, but that was ok. At the proper moment I activated the Type-97 with an immediate burst of downward acceleration. At the same time I spun reinforcement magic down to my legs and braced myself.

Both my heels crashed straight through his defensive shell to smash into the small of his back. He arched backwards, conveniently bringing the back of his head into range for a quick rabbit punch to make sure he was out of the competition. I finished by using his back as a springboard together with another burst of acceleration.

Neuman was still trying to figure out what had happened when my fist plowed into his stomach. He doubled over straight into a rising headbutt, and that was that. I crossed my arms and tsked quietly in disappointment as I watched him fall. Both Neuman and Weiss had been caught by Grantz, who had drawn safety warden duty. At least one of my men was doing his job properly.

A burst of mana behind me reminded me that I had one other competent soldier under me. I used the flight spell to anchor my head in place and rotate my body, sending my feet flying forward and up. I had completed a half turn and was in a headstand position when I saw a flash of red hair. Visha looked to be imitating my Superman punch, trying to take me out in a single hit. I approved.

Unfortunately for her, the commitment to the attack left her vulnerable. I started accelerating to match her speed while maintaining my body position even as she passed below me. I lashed out with my fingers curled over like claws, the miniature mage blades at the end of my fingernails easily dispersing her defensive shell. That done, and now almost motionless relative to her, it was easy enough to reach forward and take hold of the back of her neck.

I gave Visha a gentle shake and all the fight went out of her. As I swung back down to a normal standing position she went limp in my grip, looking for all the world like a submissive puppy.

"You got too excited and let your mana slip just before you attacked," I said.

"You knew I was there the whole time," she replied, pouting. It was amazing how quickly she could shift from a hardened aerial combatant to a soft-hearted young woman.

I chuckled. "Most mages wouldn't have noticed you. You've gotten pretty sneaky since you started working with the Mark Three."

I let her go so that we could fly side by side back to the clearing where the rest of the security auxiliary was waiting. She fell in beside me without saying a word. Even knowing her as well as I did I had a hard time judging just how she was feeling. Well, either way, she deserved a little positive reinforcement.

"Really, it's a relief to me that at least one person has kept her skills sharp," I said. "I'll leave the next group to you."

"You mean..."

"I'll step aside and act as an observer," I said. "The duty of the untouchable mistress of the air for the men to use to test themselves... I leave it to you."

She nodded, her expression firming up as she visibly shifted back into combat mode. I felt a little bad for the fellows who would be joining the next round of battle royale. Well, they'd be better off for it in the long run. Call it tough love.

Visha was, by far, the aerial mage who had absorbed the most of my flight techniques. At some point she had come to trust my judgment even over common sense; if I thought there was a better way to fly than what the Imperial academy was teaching, then she thought the same thing. As a result, leaving myself aside, if I needed an aerial mage to win a solo fight against anybody in the world she would be my pick. Even against me, in a fight using the same computation orb we were a fairly even match. My only clear advantage was my high inborn magical ability. The only reason I had been able to win so cleanly this time was her choice to commit to an all or nothing attack.

In a more extended dogfight I would usually be able to grind out a win against her, but it would be a tough fight. Given enough matches she would win her fair share as well. By stepping aside now I could preserve my own untouchable reputation for the moment, which would be quite useful in breaking the men's bad habits. I could also use the break. Flying was fun, but even I tired out eventually.

Abuse of authority? No, it's called effective delegation. Or, if I must, the privilege of command. Being the boss of a group is a heavy responsibility. It's only natural that such a burden is balanced out with a few advantages on the other side.

ooOoo


	8. Chapter 8

_AN: I have to say that after watching the anime before going back to the third volume of the LN the weird pacing is even more painful. It didn't help that it left out the single best scene from the relevant time period of the anime (Tanya's victory discussion with Lergen). I feel like I just sat through the whole Broadway production of Glengarry Glen Ross waiting for the Always Be Closing speech._

ooOoo

Overall I would say that the flight training went well. After the first week I wasn't able to devote more than a couple of days a month to checking the men's progress, but Visha had learned enough from that initial push that she was able to take over and do a fine job as an instructor in my stead. With only thirteen military grade flight orbs they were only able to train up to company-sized maneuvers. That was fine for working on fundamentals. By rotating the use of the orbs everybody was able to get a decent amount of training in.

Besides myself the Germanian Workers' Party had fifty-one aerial mages in its employ. The majority had been in the 203rd at the end of the war. The remainder were men who had served in the 203rd for some time before being rotated to other units as HQ tried to raise the performance of Imperial flight mages across the board. There were still quite a few alumni of the 203rd out there in the civilian sector. I never looked too deeply into why they hadn't signed up with us. I could only assume that they disagreed with my politics, or perhaps had already landed comfortable jobs. I liked to think that a few of them were, like me, men of peace who had been dragged into war and were now seizing the chance for a peaceful life with both hands. I wished them all the best in their endeavors.

It might seem strange that I would put such battle hardened veterans through remedial training. I'm sure many of the men thought so, although they were wise enough not to voice such concerns in my presence. The problem is that while constant warfare is good for training some things it's quite poor for training others. In economics terms it's an issue of time preference.

The concept of time preference has to do with how people value time. Somebody with a low time preference values their happiness in the future and is willing to make short term sacrifices that will pay out over time. On the other hand, somebody with a high time preference values their happiness right now and doesn't worry too much about what will happen later. In the story of the ant and the grasshopper, the ant has a low time preference and the grasshopper has a high time preference. Just like the story, people and nations with low time preferences usually do better in life than the people and nations with high time preferences.

You can't totally neglect the present, though. Especially in war. It doesn't matter if you have a wonderful new tank design that will start production next year if all your factories are being overrun today by your enemy's mediocre tanks. In a fight for survival it's only natural to focus on anything that will increase your chance of surviving to the next day and to neglect everything else.

Speaking of my men in particular, they were absolutely first rate in terms of any skill that could be honed in battle. Whether you talk about mental fortitude under pressure, quick and decisive action in combat, anticipating enemy actions, casting spells in combat, or anything of that nature, they were terrific. Where they had room for improvement was in the skills that required extended investment in order to improve. Taking a month or two in order to leisurely revise your fundamental approach to flying was a dangerous fantasy during a war. Exploring the advantage of casting for efficiency rather than power was also a bad idea when you risked having the enemy blow you up if our defensive screen was too weak.

I could only hope that extended peace time training would help them rise to new heights. We were the only aerial mages available for General Lergen to use. Relying on a single battalion of mages as a country's entire force was a complete joke. The Empire used to maintain three wings in each regional army group and another three wings with the central army. In peace time. Some of those units may have been under strength, but during the war they had been filled to the brim and whole new units had been created. And that's not even mentioning the mages assigned to the navy.

A single battalion obviously could not fulfill all of the duties that aerial mages used to handle. Even if Germania was smaller than the Empire had been, it was still large enough that it would have been fielding a much larger aerial mage corps if not for the treaty of Triano. Instead of a strategic tool, it would be better to describe our unit as a surprise weapon. General Lergen would be able to deploy us once to great effect by catching the enemy by surprise, but after that we would be overwhelmed. By training the men to a high standard I hoped we could accomplish as much as possible during that moment of surprise.

It was also sadly necessary to train the men to be able to cope in these new circumstances. Friendly artillery? Air support? A lovely dream. Instead they needed to be ready to cope with enemy artillery, enemy aircraft, and enemy numerical superiority.

All in all, while the training was going well the overall strategic situation remained grim.

There was also the matter of the economy.

The government remained committed to its policy of making ends meet by printing more money. It was possible that they sincerely thought that this was a good idea. If they believed there was a floor to the value of the mark then by continuing to print marks once they hit that floor they could indeed save the economy with the printing press. Even if some of them realized the truth that there was no floor and no salvation to be had by printing ever larger denomination bills, they were still stuck together with the rest.

As long as they held together they could look forward to two more years of control over the national government. If they were to splinter over, for example, what to do if they abandoned the status quo, then there would be a new set of elections. I had the poll data to show that an election would go poorly for them but even without such a scientific tool available they had to know that an angry population would use them as an outlet for their rage.

Accordingly, the country found itself in a strange place. Social stability was fraying at the seams. Inflation had reached the point where measuring an annual interest rate was meaningless. Instead, the best way to make sense of it was to track how long it took for the mark to lose half of its value. A time period that was getting shorter and shorter every month. While all of this was going on the government remained in stasis, locked into inaction.

I kept making public appearances as I always had. We were starting to see some interesting numbers in our polling. For one thing, the average supporter of the party was changing. During the last election we were overwhelmingly supported by voters who were concerned about foreign policy and the military. That's not to say that we captured anything like a majority of voters who were concerned about foreign policy-only natural, as our foreign policy prescriptions were insane-but rather that people who did vote for us were people who liked our insane foreign policy. Now, though, we were seeing more voters indicate that they supported us who had the economy as their primary concern. Apparently my prescience in anticipating the current inflationary crisis together with my vague promises to fix things had impressed some people.

The other noticeable change in our support was how it kept growing over time. I was pleasantly surprised when we hit fifteen percent. I was nervous when we hit twenty. I was downright worried when the polls showed us with twenty-five percent support with only six months left until the election. I was happy to accrue a few more seats in the Diet but fundamentally I was committed to the role of the crazy firebrand unable to change a corrupt system. If our vote totals got too high there was a real danger that my supporters would start to expect results.

What could I do? If I just repudiated all of our positions, the rest of the party would want to know why. I could hardly tell them that I wanted to drive voters away. I guess I could have cut off our charitable efforts, but we were doing some genuine good there by providing food for people who needed it. In the end, I decided that the best thing to do was to turn in to the proverbial skid.

Rather than put down our popular positions, I would magnify them to the point of absurdity. Instead of simply blaming the Francois for our troubles I began calling for an outright invasion if the Francois refused to cease their subversive efforts. Where before I had criticized the implementation of the money-printing policy as foolish, now I described it as criminal. I called for its architects to be dragged out and whipped in the public square. In essence, by appearing in public as a frothing madman I hoped to drive off sensible voters so as to be left only with the support of our base of lunatics.

In the end we won thirty-two percent of the vote.

All hope wasn't lost, though. Even though we had a large share of seats in the incoming parliament, it wasn't enough to form a majority government by ourselves. The other parties shouldn't be willing to join up with us after all of my crazy promises during the campaign. As long as they formed a government without us then I could settle back into my comfortable position as a powerless critic.

ooOoo

President-elect Kurt von Rudersdorf took a long drag off of his cigar. He held it in for a long moment, even as his lungs began to tingle, then burn. He was surrounded by two of his oldest friend in a luxurious sitting room in his personal estate after a surprise election win. By all rights they should be in the middle of a raucous celebration. Instead, when he exhaled a cloud of smoke it had more of the sound of a long-suffering sigh.

It was true that he probably would not have been elected without the crisis facing the country, but the crisis of hyperinflation seemed a more pointed threat now that he would be held responsible for it. Worse, a new crisis had come about as a result of the election results themselves. Tanya von Degurechaff's extremist party had won thirty-two percent of the vote, while the communist bastards had managed twenty-two percent support for their schemes. Simple mathematics dictated that no majority government could be formed without including one of those two parties. Further down the ballot, the previous majority coalition could hardly muster twenty percent between them; they almost reached twenty-five percent if one included their former center-right coalition partners. A newly prominent right-wing party that hewed to a more moderate tack that Degurechaff accounted for another twenty percent of the electorate. All in all, it was a mess.

The president of the republic was by constitutional design not involved much in the day to day matters of government. Although the position was elected, its duties were similar to those traditionally entrusted to a constitutional monarch. He was to use his abilities to facilitate the creation of a stable government and to dismiss the Diet and call for new elections if the government were to lose its way. He could exercise further powers in the event of an emergency, although the idea of kicking off his presidential term by declaring an emergency was rather distasteful.

"Damn those fools," Rudersdorf grumbled, "flocking to Degurechaff's madness."

Hans von Zettour regarded him from across the table with a small smile on his face, unmoved by the display of emotion. Rudersdorf's old friend had agreed to come out of retirement to provide what support he could offer during the campaign. As always, it had proved invaluable to have an adviser available who was perfectly willing to tell Rudersdorf when he was being a fool.

Erich Lergen, seated next to Zettour, couldn't quite maintain the same level of detachment. If Rudersdorf had to guess, the man was torn between being pleased to hear that Rudersdorf agreed with him and anguish at the reminder of Degurechaff's success. Still, even if the man had a hard time remaining objective on the topic of Tanya von Degurechaff, he was a brilliant officer and had been a fine choice to leave in charge of the much reduced Germanian military.

Old habits of deference to age and authority died hard, so it was Zettour who spoke first.

"If the people weren't so enamored of their retired warriors," he said, "I suspect we wouldn't be celebrating your own election today."

Rudersdorf nodded, acknowledging the point, while Lergen straightened up in protest.

"It's one thing to vote for somebody you admire," Lergen said, "but surely voters have a responsibility to consider the candidates' proposed policies as well."

Rudersdorf waved a hand in dismissal. "There's no point debating abstract theories or talking about what might have been. I need to decide what to do about this mess."

The two moderate right wing parties between them had about twenty five percent of the vote. Combined with Degurechaff's Germanian Workers' Party they would have more than enough to form a majority government. Both parties were at least tentatively open to working with Degurechaff, although they were nervous about her rather extreme proclamations during the campaign. The two parties had sent feelers out seeking Rudersdorf's opinion. Although they hadn't said so in so many words it was clear that they were willing to follow his guidance in this matter.

"The way I see it, you have two choices," Zettour said, his voice as calm as if he were simply describing his latest logistical plan. "First, you could lock the Diet into the stasis of a minority government and effectively rule by decree. Second, you accept the voters' decision and appoint Chancellor Degurechaff at the head of a majority government."

"Surely he can't accept Degurechaff as chancellor?" Lergen protested. "She all but promised to invade the Francois Republic!"

Rudersdorf held his tongue and listened with interest. He'd found during his time on the general staff that a vigorous debate between subordinates would often lead to valuable insights.

"Campaign promises are one thing, but political actions are quite another," Zettour replied, before pausing to puff on his cigar. "Degurechaff was never the kind of officer to throw her men's life away on a pointless charge."

"She's already violating the treaty of Triano," Lergen said.

"Oh?"

"She has control of a small computation orb production line," Lergen explained.

That made Rudersdorf sit up and take notice. He knew that Degurechaff employed most of her former aerial mage subordinates in her little group of leg breakers. From their storied performance in various street fights he had concluded that they were using civilian grade orbs to boost their fighting prowess. It stood to reason that she would want to get her hands on military grade orbs, but wanting and having were two different things. Despite all the rumors he had never seen any hard evidence that Degurechaff had managed such a thing.

"I'd heard rumors, but I was never able to discover anything concrete," Zettour said, echoing Rudersdorf's thoughts. "How did you find out so much?"

"Her damn secretary gives me a readiness report every week," Lergen said. "According to her latest report she's up to a full battalion of men who are adequately trained."

That was puzzling on two levels. First, it was strange that she would be so forthcoming about what was, in effect, a crime. Particularly with a stickler for the rules like Lergen. The more subtle puzzle was immediately apparent to men who were experienced with supervising the 203rd. They could vividly remember how in every after action report, no matter how glorious the victory described therein, then Major von Degurechaff had plead for more time in order to train her men up to snuff. It was hard to imagine what a battalion that she considered adequately trained would look like.

Zettour leaned forward and tapped his cigar against the ashtray sitting on the table. "I wonder if our President actually has two choices after all, then."

"What do you mean?" Lergen asked.

"Tell me this: if Tanya von Degurechaff were to declare the existence of her mage battalion and call for the overthrow of the elected government," Zettour began, "how much of the military would rally to her side?"

Zettour delivered the question in such a matter of fact tone that it took a moment for the magnitude of what he was saying to sink in. Rudersdorf found himself bristling in indignation, only for that feeling to subside into a sort of muted horror as he considered the matter in more depth.

If some jumped up corporal had had a bit of political success and decided to declare a putsch, Rudersdorf was sure he could have it put down. He did have years of experience in leading the Imperial military, after all. But a rebellion sparked by Tanya von Degurechaff was a different matter. She was a war hero and a leader of men. More than that, she had fought alongside her men in battle after battle, always pressing forward, usually to victory. The relationship between soldiers and the staff officers stationed at headquarters was necessarily rather distant. Rudersdorf wouldn't say that he could pull on the same bond of battle-forged brotherhood to which Degurechaff could appeal.

Ordinarily he would have liked to say that the traditions of state would keep the military loyal, but the previous government had spent years running the credibility of the federal government into the ground. In the face of a charismatic military leader-especially a leader who had the personal loyalty of a battalion of aerial combat mages-those chains of tradition binding the soldiers together were mere cobwebs to be brushed away.

"She wouldn't... no, she definitely would," Lergen said, his face falling as his own analysis seemed to run along the same lines. "Damn it, how did this happen?"

"Calm down. She's been willing to work within the system so far," Zettour replied, tapping his chin in thought. "I wonder just how far ahead she has been planning."

Lergen fixed him with a sharp glare. "Just what are you saying?"

"It's odd that she would tell the Secretary General about her own private army," Zettour said. "Unless she wants him to know... or wants us to know... what she could have done and still could do."

It was funny. The three of them had known Tanya von Degurechaff for more than half her life. For any ordinary young woman, you would say that they had seen her grow up. By all rights they ought to know everything about what made her tick. However, for some reason Degurechaff even at eleven had possessed a strong and fully formed personality. Even back then she had been the consummate Imperial soldier. Piecing together her thought process was more like determining the thoughts of a colleague than tracing the motivations of a youngster he had practically helped raise to an adult.

Even so, Rudersdorf thought he understood what Zettour was driving at here.

"A message," Rudersdorf said, finally breaking his silence. "You play fair and so will I, something like that."

Rudersdorf still vehemently disagreed with much of Degurechaff's campaign platform. However, the picture Zettour was painting was very different from the maniac she appeared to be on the campaign trail. Anybody who could meticulously assemble such a potent force and then refrain from using it was too canny to throw away the country's future with a futile invasion.

Lergen turned to face him, clearly alarmed. "You can't seriously mean to-"

"Relax, General. I hardly intend to let her have everything her own way. If she proposes anything too outrageous I can always oppose her legislative agenda. Besides that, including some elder statesmen in her cabinet should help keep her impulses in check," Rudersdorf said, before turning to face Zettour. "I'll be troubling you."

Zettour smiled. "It will be my pleasure. After such masterful planning has brought her to this point, I can hardly wait to see what she has planned next."

Rudersdorf nodded in gratitude. In his heart he recited a couplet that he had repeated many times during the war: Tanya von Degurechaff was an unsettling existence. He could only thank God that she was on his side.

ooOoo

 _AN2: IRL hyperinflation led to widespread social unrest which in turn led to several hilariously inept attempts at armed revolution that were easily put down by the army. Here Tanya has channeled all of that energy into the electoral process. Toss in her use of some modern electioneering methods, her foresight re: inflation, and her famous war heroism... and here we are._


	9. Chapter 9

AN: Chancellor's Daily Briefing ahead.

ooOoo

With my unfortunate ascension to the position of Chancellor the second thing I received, after a tour of my new office, was a briefing on the status of our nation and its position in the world stage. I'd been entitled to attend a less detailed version of this briefing as a member of the Diet, but I'd rarely bothered. With my reputation I never planned to visit any foreign countries and I didn't expect to have any influence on foreign policy. Besides, I knew the basics of our situation from reading the newspaper. Sitting down and hearing about everything in detail really drove home the delicate state of the country.

On the domestic front there were no great surprises. Inflation was progressing at a rate that was so high it was difficult to measure. The simplest yard stick was the comparison between the gold mark and the paper mark. The two currencies had the same nominal value, but the gold mark was backed by gold while the paper mark was a fiat currency. Before the war they had traded at a rate of roughly three paper marks to two gold marks. These days it would take at least a trillion paper marks to purchase a single gold mark.

The massive inflation was wreaking a devastating toll on our economy. Large chunks of the countryside had reverted to a barter system. Countless businesses had closed their doors, unable to do business in a country where money had no value. The only bright spots were export based businesses that could sell their products for hard currency while taking advantage of cheap labor. Even this silver lining came with its own dark cloud, as such business practices created a great deal of resentment and a fair few beatings and lynchings of supposed "foreign collaborators."

Our next reparations payment was due in six months. This had been the overriding priority of the previous government. While their policies had nothing but ruinous effects on the nation, they had at least managed to stockpile over ninety percent of the precious goods and foreign currency that we would be forced to hand over.

The state of things when it came to foreign policy was also rather grim. To put it simply, our friends were not powerful and the powerful were not our friends. As Chancellor it was my duty to try to steer our country clear of disaster somehow. All I could do was to try to learn as much as I could in hopes of finding a way forward.

Our neighbor to the west was of course the Francois Republic. They had returned to their historic borders at the conclusion of the war with the exception of their annexation of Elsass-Lothringen, a territory that had long been in dispute between their nation and ours. The country as a whole was enjoying a post war economic boom. The great leader de Lugo had been hailed as a hero at the end of the war, elected to the presidency, and turned out of office unceremoniously in the space of three years.

The current government was left leaning. They had campaigned on the promise of a peace dividend and had busily gone about reducing the size of their armed forces since their election. Even so, the Francois army numbered around half a million men and could easily crush our own army in any serious conflict. Their advantage was only magnified by the treaty-imposed technological disadvantages we suffered.

Overall the public mood of the Francois could be described as exhausted by the war but jubilant in their victory. And, of course, strongly anti-Germanian. There is a natural human tendency when one person has done another wrong. Rather than feel sympathy and try to make things right for his victim, the abuser will instead begin to despise his victim, grasping on to-or inventing wholesale-even the most spurious reasons to justify his actions. Something like this had taken place on a national scale after the war. The Francois Republic had invaded the Empire in a surprise attack, therefore the Empire must have deserved it. The list of the calumnies they heaped upon us was impressive in its length, if nothing else.

To the north of the Francois Republic was our new eastern neighbor, Lothiern. Formerly the disputed territory of Imperial Niedland, the newly created republic was rife with internal divisions. Many of the citizens felt resentment towards the Empire for the bullying that had made them an imperial protectorate in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This was mollified somewhat by the fact that the Empire had treated them with a relatively light hand. Their membership in the Empire was more like participation in a mandatory free trade union than any outright exploitation. Even so, modest coercion is still coercion.

However mixed the feelings of the people of Lothiern towards Germania might be, they certainly had no great love for the Francois Republic. The Francois offensive and subsequent hardening of defensive lines had caused much of the most intense fighting of the war to take place on their home soil. The tremendous destruction and loss of life was keenly felt even now. To make things worse, the Francois had required in the war-ending treaty that the newly created country compensate the Francois in hard currency for the expenses involved in their liberation. While not as severe as the reparations imposed on Germania, the measure was still widely reviled.

All in all, the people of Lothiern would not be clamoring to rejoin the Empire any time soon. On the other hand, they didn't regard themselves as our sworn enemies, either. While a military alliance was extremely unlikely, it would be possible to enter into amicable trade relations with them if our economy wasn't on fire.

Our new neighbor to the north was a little more interesting. The country of Daneland had been given the portion of Imperial Norden that made up the peninsula bordering Germania as well as the islands in the Baltic Sea, while the land that was on the Scandinavian peninsula had gone to the Entente. At the insistence of the Entente they had not been made to bear any reparations payments.

It wasn't hard to see that the Entente was interested in adding a new member. They shared cultural ties with the people of Daneland, and it was largely happenstance that had caused the Entente to leave Daneland out in the cold when they initially joined together. Historical accident or no, though, that exclusion had led Daneland to join up with the Empire more or less voluntarily. Their time in the Empire had been good to them. In addition to the other benefits associated with joining a larger nation, they had profited greatly from all the money that the Empire had poured into the area in its futile efforts to match the Allied Kingdom's fleet.

If presented with the need to choose a larger state to join, all else being equal, it was hard to say which way Daneland would go. Of course, with our economy in shambles Germania was hardly putting its best foot forward at the moment.

As for the attitude of the Legadonia Entente, it would perhaps best be described as sheepish but optimistic. They had been knocked out of the war in a quick and decisive battle and had not suffered too badly under the military government, all things considered. They even gained territory as a result of the war. However, they were still widely regarded as having foolishly instigated the Great War for no good reason. Rather than dwell on what had happened in the past, they seemed to prefer to focus on the future.

Further east came the largest departure from what I remembered from my previous life. Those memories were from history classes now thirty years in the past, but I played my fair share of WWII board games and I thought I remembered the basic layout. The creators of the treaty of Triano had largely followed the boundary lines in my memory, but the country of Pullska was a complete departure from what I knew.

First of all, there was no "Pulish corridor" to speak of. All of the land east of the border belonged to Pullska. Germania had not been left with an enclave in Eastern Preussia. As you might expect, the Germanian revanchists I represented were displeased by that. But not outraged, oddly enough.

That surprising calm had to do with the second departure from the history that I remembered: the people of Pullska were wildly enthusiastic about the Empire. They would vote to join back up in a heartbeat if given the choice and were only restrained from outright declaring a reunion by the latent threat of force. That was strange enough that I cracked open some history books to do my own research.

In the process I finally found one explanation for why the Empire was so much larger than the German Empire from my old world: here, the partition of Pullska had taken place very early in the eighteenth century. Furthermore, the push and pull of European great power politics and warfare had seen Preussia take control of over a third of the old Pulish territory. They had then set about Preussifying the territory with great enthusiasm. On the one hand, massive infrastructure improvements, state funded education, and new manufacturing concerns. On the other hand, the use of Germanian as the official language was strictly enforced and any malcontents summarily expelled from the territory. The carrot and the stick were both employed with typical Preussian efficiency.

The end result of all of this was that the people of the territory considered themselves to be true Preussians at heart with the zeal of religious converts. That zeal was only fed by the rise of Preussia into the powerhouse of Europe. While Pulish revolutionaries elsewhere might dream of restoring their country, the people living within the borders of the Empire only dreamed of Imperial glory.

With a large and secure power base behind it Preussia had then been willing to accept the offer from Osterry to join together, annex all of the Hapsburg holdings as well, and declare themselves the Empire of my rebirth. The Preussian people eventually came to dominate the new empire culturally. This ultimately gave rise to a national militaristic attitude that would lead the Empire to develop armed forces fit to take on the world and then, unfortunately, to take on the entire world in a single war.

Besides their affection for us, the great concern facing the people of Pullska was the Rus Union. Pullska had been left with a feeble army that was no match at all for the commies. Their freedom was only secured for the moment by diplomatic assurances from the Francois and the Allied Kingdom. Well, that and communist incompetence.

East of Pullska, the Rus Union was a terrifying threat but not yet an imminent danger. They had spent the bulk of the time period of the Great War embroiled in a bloody but inconclusive war of their own with the Akitsukushima Empire over control of Outer Mongolia and Manchuria, of all places. Anybody willing to mobilize a nation to fight over those backwaters was clearly a war-crazed maniac.

After that war ended the Rus Union had indulged in an extensive purge of its officer corps. Watching from the outside it was hard to say how many officers were sacked for incompetence and how many were sacked for being politically unreliable, but either way the effect on their military was devastating. They were in no shape to fight a war right now. Of course, if they ever did get their act together they would present an immense threat between their massive population and their massive industrial base. A fully mobilized Rus Union would have been a peer for the Empire even if we had triumphed in the Great War. For the current Germania, our role would be that of a small animal being crushed by a steamroller.

For now, all I could do was hope that they failed for as long as possible to get their act together. If I ever saw Being X again I'd be sure to recommend he take a tour and see what happens when you reject the free market system. I'd like to see how that hypocritical bastard reacts to a forced labor camp. While in general I'm staunchly against divine punishment, I could make an exception for communists.

As for the Akitsukushima Empire, I naturally felt some affection for the land that had been my home in my previous life. Unfortunately, they seemed firmly determined to repeat all of the blunders that I had learned by heart in history class. Regardless of my personal feelings, I did not dare to link hands with a power so intent on militaristic expansionism. I'd like to warn them of the troubles they were courting, but they would hardly take direction from some meddling gaijin. Ah, well. Even without an alliance, every time they took a poke at the Rus it would distract the bear from my new home. Ganbatte, you bloodthirsty fools!

Returning focus to our local neighborhood, the Habsburg holdings had been split into individual countries more or less as I remembered them. The only surprise for me there was again their favorable disposition towards the Empire. For them joining the Empire had been the result of purely diplomatic overtures and had led to nothing but economic success. As a result of their membership in the Empire they had been subject to heavy Germanian influence and had picked up quite a bit of Germanian culture. They would likely be hesitant to outright rejoin a new Empire, but they regarded the old one as a fond memory.

The rump state of Osterry practically considered itself part of Germania already. Although the local political leaders had taken the opportunity of the reshaped map to puff up their own importance and proclaim their ability to stand on their own, the population by and large regarded their separation from the Empire as an outrage. It was possible, though, that they would get a taste for independence over time. Especially if our economic catastrophe continued. Although Osterry had also been subject to heavy reparations, their government had opted to meet its obligations by borrowing heavily rather than by destroying the value of its own currency. While their approach was not without its own dangers, the obvious superiority over the path taken by the Germanian government had become apparent over the last few years.

The final local power was the Kingdom of Ildoa. They had been rewarded for their betrayal of the Empire with a bit of disputed Imperial territory. Somewhat surprisingly, the people of Germania did not feel the same sort of white hot hate toward the kingdom that they did toward the Francois Republic. They weren't exactly fond of Ildoa, of course, but it was widely believed that the Allied Kingdom's utter dominance of the sea-a dominance with which we had become all too familiar as the war progressed-had created a situation where Ildoa was forced to change sides in the war. It helped Germanian opinion that the Ildoan participation had been more in the nature of failing to stop the armies marching through its territory rather than actively fighting Imperial troops.

Far off in the distance lurked the Unified States, firmly established as the first of the great powers after its role in the humbling of the Empire. The public sentiment there seemed to be turning inward. In general the people of the Unified States regarded the war as a job well done rather than a reason for ongoing involvement in Europe. They were enjoying a tremendous economic boom and had the most optimistic outlook of any nation on earth.

The new states carved out of Imperial territory all had vestigial militaries at best. In the case of Osterry and Pullska this was a result of the same treaty provisions that shackled Germania. Lothiern didn't have the money to spare for a military build up. Daneland was doing well financially and was not restricted by treaty but simply chose not to invest in anything other than a navy capable of patrolling its corner of the Baltic Sea. Throughout Europe in general there was a great deal of war weariness. There was also a sense that, as nobody would be foolish enough to start another war while everybody was still reeling from the Great War, there was no need to invest a great deal in the military. Even so, while the armies of our enemies had been reduced in size from their peak during the war, any one of them was more than enough to sweep aside our own army with contemptuous ease.

I spent a long time turning these facts over in my mind, trying to find the right course of action. Even as I made my way towards my first official cabinet meeting I hadn't firmly decided what to do. It didn't help that the information came to me from such a remove. I was briefed by the head of our Foreign Office based on what he had learned from our ambassadors who in turn were largely relaying secondhand information. For somebody who used to be able to look up any relevant facts with the click of a mouse it was an uncomfortable situation.

I paused before the door to the conference room and turned to address Elya. She, together with Visha, was accompanying me to the meeting. Ostensibly they were there as my administrative assistants.

"We should expand our polling operations beyond our borders," I said. "I don't like making decisions while I'm half blind."

"Expand to foreign countries?" Elya asked, eyes widening. "That could be a challenge."

Well, naturally teams of young Germanian women walking around the Francois countryside asking questions would raise some eyebrows. I was pleased that Elya had spotted the problem, but the solution was simple enough.

"Hire locals if you have to," I said, waving my hand dismissively. "I should at least be able to get you the budget to do that much. I'll just have to be a little creative so that we remain appropriately discreet."

She nodded and I turned back to the door in front of me, already putting the issue out of my mind. Over the past few years I had found that a task delegated to Elya was a task I no longer needed to worry about.

I had plenty of other things to worry about, of course. Procrastinating wouldn't make the list any shorter. I took a deep breath, then threw open the door and strode into the room. Time to steer the ship of state.

ooOoo


	10. Chapter 10

_AN: Come for the magical girl isekai combat, stay for the monetary policy._

ooOoo

Keeping my memories from my previous life had provided me with advantages throughout my military career. My recollection of history and the development of modern technology was useful, of course, but I always felt that the greatest asset was my own personal experience. For example, I was always able to carry myself well in meetings with the top brass. The time I put in on the golf course, steak house, and karaoke club had left me with an ability to schmooze that was as precocious as my ability with a rifle.

None of that, though, had done much to prepare me to be the top brass myself. The men of the cabinet would have been the sort, in my past life, to be my boss's boss's boss. And now I was expected to lead all of them by virtue of my position as chancellor.

Chancellor Degurechaff. What a joke. I had only demanded the position out of a sense of obligation to the party after we achieved such magnificent electoral gains. I was prepared to back down after a chiding from newly elected President Rudersdorf. Indeed, I was counting on such a response. I had no interest in taking on responsibility for the many disasters sure to befall Germania in the near future. I had hoped to perhaps have some influence over the government's approach to the hyperinflation problem.

Unfortunately, Rudersdorf had cheerfully acquiesced in my ascension, only insisting on retaining the power to appoint most of the cabinet. Though I was happy to keep the bulk of my party as far as possible from the levers of power, I was still in a tricky position. In my darker moments I wondered if Rudersdorf intended to set me up to fail. It would really take the wind out of the sails of the party's success if I fell on my face after being handed power. Really, though, I don't think he would be happy with that much damage being done to the country. Maybe such a thing could be considered his backup plan.

Ah, well. I had led a group of battle maniacs all over the world during the war. The experience should carry over, at least a little bit. And these old timers wouldn't have the chance to shoot me in the back if they disagreed with what I was doing.

I kept that thought in mind as I strode through the double doors, approaching the long table set in the center of the room to stand behind the empty seat at its head. The murmur of conversation that had been filling the room faded away as the men seated around the table looked up at me. One of them began preparing to light a cigar.

"Save the cigar for after the meeting," I said. "I dislike the smoke."

He looked up at me in surprise. I just held his gaze evenly. We weren't in the military, so I couldn't simply execute him if he disobeyed. On the other hand, I would certainly be able to arrange something unpleasant. As chancellor I could do at least that much. He must have come to the same conclusion, as after a moment he lowered his head and set the cigar off to the side.

My first taste of the arbitrary exercise of authority was sweet indeed. I would be able to walk out of this room and work for the rest of the day without smelling as though I was just home from a bar. Never let it be said that the chancellorship was without its perks.

I took a deep breath and brought my thoughts under control. General Zettour had been appointed Minister of the Interior and was no doubt here to act as Rudersdorf's eyes and ears. He'd report back if I went mad with power. I needed to hold myself to a reasonable standard of behavior.

I clasped my hands together before spreading them out wide as I took my seat. "Let's not waste time. The most important issue facing our nation today is the inflation crisis. Mr. Klohse, your thoughts?"

Ludwig Klohse, our Minister of Finance, had a reputation as a steady, competent man. It matched his appearance, which was tidy if not impressive. He responded to my question readily enough at least.

"There are two broad categories of factors driving the inflation. The first have to do with the fundamental value of the paper mark. The second have to do with the mood of the people," he said. He looked around the room, visibly gauging the level of financial expertise sitting around the table. I could empathize. It was never easy to figure out how to summarize relevant details when presenting a topic to laypeople. "The fundamental value problems will largely go away if we stop increasing the money supply. No more loans from the state bank to the government and no more pallets of banknotes printed off to make payroll."

I was unwilling to leave things at just that. "Ordinarily we would also tighten reserve requirements, but there's not much consumer lending to worry about these days, right?"

He looked a little relieved. I couldn't blame him for expecting the career military officer elected on a populist platform to be a complete meathead. It was fortunate for him that I had been required to take an introductory macroeconomics course back in the day. I didn't remember any of the math but I kept hold of the basic idea that loans create money. The existence of more money naturally means that any individual unit of money will be worth less than it otherwise would. A government that encourages a lot of lending will, all else being equal, tend to see more inflation. My predecessor had been interested in every source of "free money" he could get his hands on and had essentially turned every inflationary knob up to the maximum.

"Just so," he said, nodding. "Unfortunately, without the injection of new money I'm afraid the government won't be able to meet its own financial obligations for more than a week or so."

"Don't worry about the practical problems," I said, waving my hand. "To the financial problem of reduced monetary value you've presented us with the financial solution of reduced monetary supply. What of the mood of the people?"

"We need to convince the people that we are sincere in our commitment to the new policy of reduced monetary supply. The ideal situation would be to introduce a new currency tied to a precious metal," he said. "Unfortunately, as a result of the treaty of Triano we have no reserve of gold or silver. I have a proposal prepared for a rye-backed currency but, again, the government would somehow have to acquire a strategic stockpile of rye."

Introducing a new currency would have two positive effects. First, a currency backed by a valuable material has a natural floor to its value. The people would trust it in a way that they would not trust a new fiat currency. Second, a new mark would take the place of a trillion or more of the old marks, and in so doing would return prices to a natural level. In principle it is no different whether a loaf of bread costs two marks or two trillion, so long as the rest of the economy adjusts appropriately to the value of a mark. In practice, though, the price of two marks feels more normal and so helps set the mind of the ordinary citizen at ease.

What Klohse had described was the dilemma that had trapped the previous government. In order to put a halt to inflation the government needed to spend money, but the only practical means they had to raise money would lead to more inflation. Fortunately for me, they had accidentally built up an escape route, although they had been unwilling to take it.

"A coal-backed currency would function just as a currency backed by any other mineral, would it not?" I asked. "Our territory produces all the coal we could ever need."

"Yes, although the government would still have to acquire-"

"The government has already acquired quite a stockpile of coal," I said. "I believe it is even conveniently stored near a stockpile of other precious material that could be sold in order to fund the government's operations until tax revenues once more come in line with expenses."

He simply stared at me. As expected of a bureaucrat, once resources were filed away as destined for reparations payments he treated them as if they did not exist.

It was General Zettour who broke the silence. "I believe Mr. Klohse is concerned that reallocating those resources and deliberately failing to make our reparations payments could instigate a crisis."

"Oh. I see," I said. I paused to take a sip of coffee. "Do the rest of you also fear this... crisis?"

I cast my eyes over the crowd. The party man I'd installed as Minister of Economic Affairs seemed confident in me. Visha, the only member of our party I'd considered level headed enough to take the post of Deputy Chancellor, was of course calm. The rest of the cabinet seemed quite perturbed at the thought of a crisis that was almost half a year away. How disappointing.

"Thank you, General Zettour, for exposing this strand of naivete," I said, setting my coffee back down. I let the rest of the cabinet babble for a moment before slapping my palm down on the table. I tapped into enough mana to make a satisfying crash but not quite enough to smash through the table. It quieted the room down quite nicely at the cost of spilling the remainder of my coffee. "Silence! You all cower at the thought of a crisis six months away while ignoring the crisis taking place right now. What can I call that but naive?"

I never seriously wanted to be chancellor. Now that I had the position, though, I was hardly going to stand by and watch the country burn. I didn't expect to hold this position for long, but as long as I had it I was going to do my best. If doing my best meant saving these idiots from themselves, then that was where I would start.

"Do you think the voters chose me because they liked my dress? Do you think that if I fail they will line up behind a nice centrist party?" I continued. "The people are hungry. The people are angry. The people want change. If I don't deliver the change they want, they will find somebody who can."

That prompted some uncomfortable fidgeting around the table. I couldn't help but wonder how many of them were hoping that the madness that had led to my victory was a passing fancy on the part of the voters.

"In all honesty, if I resign tomorrow I expect that revolutionaries would take over within the month," I said. "That might prompt the Francois into action, but I doubt their armies could reach Berun before everyone in here was executed as an enemy of the people."

A Francois occupation would be humiliating. A communist revolution would see blood running in the streets. I would rather avoid both, but given the choice I would oppress the commies every time.

When I paused again to survey the mood of the room, nobody seemed inclined to voice any further objections. I returned my attention to my Minister of Finance. "Now, will using the reparations stockpile in such a fashion see us through the current crisis?"

Klohse nodded.

I smiled. "Wonderful. I will trust you to see to the details."

"There remains the matter of revaluation," Klohse said. "The new mark will take the place of a trillion of the old marks. This will officially render worthless the long term debt held by our banks."

"How unfortunate for the lenders," I said. "And yet in equal measure a boon for borrowers."

The heart of the concept of revaluation is to cut lenders a break on cumulative inflation. Instead of a loan being worth only one trillionth of its old value, they would be much better off if it were only one tenth or only one fifth of its old value.

Any transaction with a loser naturally has a winner as well. Any help we would give to banks in this matter would be a harm inflicted on borrowers. Besides my personal inclination to let the chips fall where they may without government interference, there was also the fact that more of my voters were borrowers than lenders. Klohse was going to have to make an impressive pitch if he wanted me to support his plan.

"It's not exactly an even trade," he said. "Home mortgages, for example, will be inflated away into nothing while the homes preserve their value in the new currency."

"If the homes had decreased in value instead, would the banks have obediently reduced the amount borrowers needed to pay?" I asked. "Or is it that borrowers should pay because they have the ability, while the banks collect because they need the money? Perhaps we should have invited the communists into the governing coalition after all."

It was a little cruel to mock him like that, but one thing that always pissed me of as an advocate of the free market was the farce known as a private-public partnership. Inevitably the way things worked was that the private half pocketed the gains while the public side shouldered the losses. The intervention Klohse was proposing was an even more blatant gift to the banks.

"The recent hyperinflation is hardly part of the normal ebb and flow of the market. It's an act of God that defies all reasonable planning," he replied. "Besides, if we do not provide a revaluation it would drive large portions of the banking sector out of business. That many destroyed savings accounts could trigger a nationwide bank run."

That brought me up short. My first instinct was to retort that most borrowers would be able to rely on deposit insurance. Then I remembered that financial regulations barely existed at this time. Deposit insurance was just a dream in some bureaucrat's eye. If a large swath of small accounts were wiped out then a panic and follow up bank run would naturally ensue. That sort of thing was common during the Great Depression.

Even if personal savings were at a low ebb right now due to the low value of the mark, a debacle like that would be a black mark on my record. I'd have to bend a little.

"Very well," I said. "Have your office determine the very minimum relief that must be granted in order to keep most banks solvent."

His shoulders sagged in relief as he nodded, looking away from me briefly to take a few notes. I wasn't willing to just let things rest there, though.

"In addition, have them calculate a fair rate for deposit insurance," I continued. "We will offer such insurance subject to reasonable regulation. Purchase will be mandatory for any bank that wishes to benefit from revaluation."

"Understood," Klohse replied.

"Make sure that they understand that this trick of holding the people's savings hostage will only work once," I said. "And, Mr. Klohse, please remember that you work for the people and manage the banks. Not the other way around."

He nodded once more. That tension that had just been released from his shoulders had returned, and his knuckles were going white where he was gripping his pen. Good. This was hardly a time for our Minister of Finance to be at ease. I turned my attention to the rest of the cabinet.

"Some day our next crisis will be a year away. Or ten. Perhaps we will build a foundation that will stand without worry for a thousand years," I said. "Today, though, we will discuss how to address the crisis we know to be approaching in six months."

ooOoo

One thing I had to give the finance department credit for was that with all their practice lately they were able to create a new set of paper notes in record time. I had stopped down in the cafeteria after the meeting for a quick lunch and by the time I returned to my office they had already sent up the associated paperwork. The most notable form was the single sheet of paper marked only with a large rectangle and accompanied by a felt tip pen. Apparently I was to provide a signature and they would use some process or other to make a smaller copy appear on the new money.

Elya watched with some interest as I signed with a flourish. Despite her position as my secretary she hadn't handled much of my personal paperwork. She leaned in to look closer before tapping the end of the signature with her finger.

"What's this?"

I felt a little sheepish. My handwriting was barely legible. In my defense, the Germanian alphabet was the fourth or fifth writing system that I had learned, depending on how you counted. Also, at the age where most children were learning how to write longhand I was learning aerial combat doctrine. Even so, there was no denying that if you looked at my signature the only letters that even careful study would reveal were the T, D, and f. There was also the mark Elya had identified, where I had drawn a vertical line down through the trailing horizontal line coming off of the f before finishing it off with a little circle. The end result was a little doodle that resembled the shape of a computation orb.

"Ah, my cursive is no good, so I got in the habit of adding that to my signature so it was at least obvious it was from a mage officer," I admitted. "I guess I should change it now that I'm chancellor."

"No, if that's how you sign then that's how you sign," Elya said. "I was just thinking... we've been trying to come up with a new party symbol."

"Oh?" I asked. The old symbol was functional, but that was about all that could be said for it. It was the party initials set in the center of a circle. I was never much for graphic design so I'd never taken a crack at improving it.

"We wanted to make something that would look sharp for the new party headquarters," she said.

"New headquarters?"

"With the recent growth there are a lot more administrative roles to fill."

Perhaps I had been delegating a bit too much lately, if such a major decision was proceeding without my input. On the other hand, I guess it wouldn't really hurt to buy some more real estate. In the face of Elya's innocent smile I just couldn't bear to tell her that our hold on power was unlikely to last. Worst come to worst we could just sell the new headquarters after the next round of elections.

"Well, I'll leave such things to you," I said. "Do you have the maps I asked for?"

"Yes," she said, lifting a paper wrapped bundle off of her desk. "Detailed maps of the Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean coast."

"Excellent," I said, taking it from her. "I'm expecting to see General Lergen in an hour or so. Just send him in when he arrives."

She nodded to acknowledge the order and I made my way into my inner office. Once inside I used a letter opener to cut open the package before spreading the oversized maps to cover my entire desk. With that done I settled into my office chair and cupped my chin in my hand as I studied the map.

My plan to deal with our inevitable failure to make our reparation payments had three steps. First, we would contest our obligation under the hearing we were entitled to under the treaty of Triano. Second, we would seek a foreign loan of hard currency that would allow for a more reasonable payment schedule. In a fair and just world those two steps would be enough to see us through the crisis. In this world, created in the image of that hypocritical bastard Being X, further planning was needed.

The key to the third step was the personal enmity the victorious countries felt towards me. It was most obvious among the Francois, of course. Their leading newspaper had declared after the election that "THE DEVIL OF THE RHINE IS LEADING GERMANIA TO HELL" for almost a week straight. All of the other countries had their own reasons to hate me. I had killed an awful lot of their aerial mages. I'd also somehow been labeled the primary instigator for the tragedy of Arene. It was pure good fortune that had kept me out of any war crimes tribunal when the war ended. Now that I was a prominent leader all of those old stories were being dragged back into the limelight.

And that was fine. My absolute last resort in dealing with the coming reparations payment crisis was to drive the other side of the negotiation into such a rage that they would demand that I resign and go into exile. I planned to put up some token resistance before giving in. Germania would get a reprieve in its payment requirements, either as a result of distraction or as a negotiated point in exchange for my removal from power. The Francois would get the joy of sticking it to a hated enemy. And I would live out the rest of my life on a beach vacation. A true win-win scenario.

I had requested the map so that I could scout out locations for my future exile. I was a little unsure what I could expect. Napoleon got a whole island. To be fair, though, he had conquered most of Europe. I was the leader of one little country. An island might be a bit much to ask. A nice little plot of land and a living stipend seemed fair. I had a feeling that a villa on the Francois Riviera wouldn't be happening. Still, that left plenty of warm weather locations to choose from.

It didn't take me long to realize that there were an awful lot of islands in the Mediterranean Sea. As I reviewed the options, though, I could already see the future impasse in negotiations that would develop. All of the locations that I would prefer were too close to the Kingdom of Ildoa for Francois comfort. Although the Ildoans had turned their cloaks at the end of the war, they were hardly bosom friends of the Francois. Just as they had allowed an allied army through to invade the Empire, so they might allow a fugitive former Chancellor to return to Germania.

The islands that the Francois would likely prefer were a little too close to the Francois Republic for my tastes. While they should be satisfied with my humiliation and exile, there was no telling when somebody might get frisky with an aerial mage commando unit if my home were located next door. Besides, if I wanted to live a long and comfortable life then it really behooved me to get out of range before the bombs started falling in the next war.

Maybe I should insist on exile to the Unified States. Nobody ever bombs them.

Well, yes, there was that one time. As long as I stay on the mainland, though, it won't be my problem.

I was considering whether it would be worth studying a map of the Unified States when General Lergen walked into my office with Elya trailing in his wake. I greeted him and had him sit down across from me at my desk. Somewhat to my surprise, Elya lingered in the room instead of taking her leave. She was also carrying several heavy file folders. Odd, but she didn't often waste my time. I raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to speak.

"Thank you, Chancellor," she said, handing out a file folder to General Lergen and to me. "These are our files on the Communist Party of Germania."

I took a quick glance through the contents of the folder. It looked quite comprehensive. As expected of Elya.

"Why are you sharing this with us now?" I asked.

"During the campaign, you promised to track the communists down and burn them out of Germania," she said. "Only, there are a lot of them, so we will need help from the military."

Had I said that? It sounded like something I would say. In the last weeks of the campaign I made a lot of wild promises in my efforts to drive down our support.

I glanced at General Lergen. He looked quite concerned, which was only appropriate. I held up my hands in a placating gesture.

"Elya, please don't forget that the military is the defender of the Germanian people," I said. "It is not to be used against civilians. Even communists."

She set her own folder down on my desk and pulled a small pen and notebook from inside of her jacket before jotting something down. "Understood."

"In addition, not all campaign promises are to be taken literally," I said. I paused while she nodded and took another note. I couldn't just leave the explanation there or she might decide everything is fine as long as the commies are shot instead of burned to death. "The rank and file members of the communist party are not so bad, for the most part. Just hungry and angry. Once they have jobs that let them put a roof over their heads and food on their tables I expect they'll come to their senses."

I took another look through the folder to confirm some of the things I had seen earlier. "I am worried about the leaders who are taking money from the Rus Union. Please see that they are prosecuted by the appropriate authorities."

She nodded. "And the rest of the leadership?"

I waved my hand dismissively. "Their success is just a symptom of societal rot. In a healthy nation they won't survive for long."

A party with no popular support and no source of foreign funding would just dry up and blow away. There was no need for us to concern ourselves with them when we had much larger problems to worry about.

"Understood!"

She sketched a quick salute before collecting the folders she had handed out and marching out of my office. After the door swung shut behind her I gave General Lergen an apologetic look.

"Sorry about that," I said, feeling a little sheepish. "Elya can be overenthusiastic."

"Don't worry about it," he replied. "I have my share of troublesome subordinates."

"I know you would never relay illegal orders," I said. "You didn't get your position just because you look good in a uniform."

He started to say something but dissolved into a coughing fit. I shifted a bit uncomfortably in my seat as I reconsidered what I had said.

In regards to his personal life, I had long since confirmed that he was single. He was reputed to be married to his work. A prime target for a marriage of convenience, although as the pressure I had anticipated over my own marital status had never materialized I had never been motivated to do anything but keep an eye on the situation. I wonder if for a man not attracted to women my remark was offensive. No, I guess even if he were attracted to women then it would be sexual harassment from a superior. Ah, what a mess to create with a simple attempt at a reassuring compliment.

Fortunately, he seemed inclined to let the matter slide once he had his coughing under control.

"In any event, why did you summon me here today?"

"Tell me the state of the general staff's war plans," I said.

The general staff had pioneered the concept of making plans during peace time for the conduct of future wars. Over time it had become standard practice in my old world. I remembered comedians making jokes about the fact that the United States had plans on file for the invasion of Canada. The fact is, though, that nobody knows what the future will hold. When a war occurs it is a huge advantage for a nation to have a plan on file that has been developed at leisure after careful consideration instead of having to scramble to throw something together in a crisis.

"Considering the state of our military," Lergen replied, "the plans have not been kept up to date."

I nodded. This was within my expectations. When your only practical choice in the event of war is an immediate surrender there is no use in preparing any grand strategy. Unfortunately, this state of affairs was incompatible with my own future plans.

"I'd like you to prepare plans from the opposite perspective," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Rather than making a plan to figure out how to conquer the Francois given our current military," I said, "make a plan to figure out the military we need in order to conquer the Francois in the manner of your choosing."

His eyes widened slightly at the implication. "You want a blueprint for a military build up."

I nodded.

"The size of our military is constrained by treaty," he said.

"Of course," I replied. "But who knows what the future may bring? It's only prudent to be prepared for every eventuality."

He was visibly reluctant but ultimately had to acquiesce to the logic of my position. It was after all the same logic behind the general staff's war planning policy, just adapted to our new situation. I'm sure it felt like a waste of time for him, but these reports were central to my plans.

After all, I couldn't just back down and surrender to the first ultimatum from the Francois without laying the groundwork first. I was the head of a party of war maniacs. How could I show my face if they decided I was just a cowardly blowhard all along? In that situation it would be vital to be able to tell them that the Minister of Defense had done a comprehensive study of what was needed to defeat the Francois and concluded that our military just wasn't up to the task.

I reassured General Lergen that he need not be stingy in formulating his requirements. From my perspective, the more outlandish the army needed for victory the more convincing my facade of unwilling surrender would be.

Perhaps it was disgraceful to be planning my exit strategy on my first real day on the job, but in a precarious situation I had to look out for my own safety first. It's only by dotting all of my i's and crossing all of my t's that I could stay ahead of the misfortune that Being X would no doubt be hurling down on me.

ooOoo


	11. Chapter 11

ooOoo

If anything, I had been understating the crisis facing our country during my first cabinet meeting. The fiscal crisis was, of course, real, and if left unchecked could be used by my fanatical enemies to usher in a communist revolution. In addition, my campaign rhetoric had created an internal expectation that I would kick off a second Great War. If left unchecked my fanatical followers could launch a violent revolution of their own. And, of course, that same rhetoric had created an external expectation that I would kick off a second Great War. If I didn't do something to head off that particular crisis then our foreign enemies could well invade and outright install a puppet regime.

I deliberately refrained from laying things out so plainly during the cabinet meeting. I needed my people to feel a sense of urgency and work hard. I didn't want them to be lost to despair. It's a leader's duty to shoulder that kind of burden. Also, as two of the crises had been entirely created by my own gratuitous actions, drawing too much attention to them could create yet another crisis as my cabinet united to throw me out of office.

While I hadn't really wanted this position to begin with and fully expected to step down before my term was up, I did have my pride. I wanted to go out on my own terms. Not to mention that I at least wanted to try to do right by my voters. They were a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs who had put their hope in me. If I let them down completely then I'd be the next natural target of their bloodlust. I needed to put on a good show before I left the stage.

All I could do was try to put out one fire at a time. The top priority was to stave off any foreign invasion for as long as possible. I hoped that a bit of personal diplomacy would help to reassure our neighbors that I wasn't about to follow through on any of my more radical campaign promises. My first chance came on my second day as Chancellor, the morning after my first cabinet meeting.

Elya was the picture of composure as she brought a tray of snacks into the meeting room. Tea for the ambassador from the Allied Kingdom, water for the ambassador from the Unified States, and coffee for me. She set the tray down on the coffee table before retreating to the edge of the room. I was seated on the couch to one side of the coffee table while each of the ambassadors occupied an armchair on the other side of the table. A few functionaries were scattered around the room, but none of them would have a speaking role in today's meeting.

"Gentlemen," I said, leaning forward to retrieve the coffee. "Thank you for coming."

Mr. Johnson, the ambassador from the Unified States, was the first to respond.

"Shoot, it's our job, right?" he said, before slugging back a drink of water. "Talk, talk."

The American ambassador struck me as the kind of man who considered himself a straight shooter. He was in his fifties, and starting to show the signs of age. The silver highlights in his hair would have given him a touch of dignity if he weren't wearing the faintly ridiculous combination of a bow tie and suit that had last been tailored about twenty pounds ago. On the other hand, he was here as a representative of the nation with the largest industrial base in the world, which lent its own sort of gravitas.

"It's always an honor to be invited to the Chancellor's residence," Mr. Lloyd, the ambassador from the Allied Kingdom, said. He punctuated his remark by taking a small sip of tea.

Mr. Lloyd would not have looked a bit out of place in the halls of Buckingham Palace. His suit looked like it cost more than most cars, and his grooming was impeccable. He was stick thin, and although his smile was friendly enough his overall demeanor was rather cold. If I had to guess, I would have said that his favorite form of entertainment involved chasing after peasants on horseback.

"Such a pity that the Francois ambassador couldn't make it," I said, drawing a wince from both men.

"I believe," Mr. Lloyd said, "they were rather concerned about your comments that you would, well-"

"Round up every last Francois citizen you could and execute 'em for crimes against Germania," Mr. Johnson cut in, "if my memory's right."

That did sound familiar, now that he mentioned it. If I had ever thought I might be held accountable for all the wild promises I was making then I would have been much more careful during the campaign. Ah, well. At least I could take some comfort in the fact that I was protecting the country from being taken over by a maniac who actually believed in all that nonsense.

All I could do for now was chuckle and wave a hand dismissively. "Nobody ever manages to keep all of their campaign promises."

It would have been nice to gather representatives from all of the major countries behind the Treaty of Triano. Still, two out of three wasn't bad.

Mr. Lloyd continued the conversation after taking another sip of his tea. "I must admit I am curious which of your campaign promises will be receiving the brunt of your attention."

"Domestic affairs will be taking up most of my focus," I said, gesturing with the hand that wasn't occupied with the coffee cup. "Setting the economy right will take some effort. Not to mention the need to keep the communists from ruining everything."

"Ah, yes," Mr. Lloyd said, a sour expression on his face. "We've seen our fair share of radical organizers on our shores."

"Bastards are trying to spread their revolution across the ocean, too," Mr. Johnson chipped in.

I suppose there was a reason they called it international socialism. I kept a neutral expression on my face and hummed in acknowledgement.

"I dare say that it may take a heavy hand to root them out of Germania," Mr. Lloyd said. "Of course, the Allied Kingdom would hardly concern itself with your domestic affairs."

"We have a saying back home," Mr. Johnson said. "Better dead than red."

I blinked, slightly nonplussed. I'd been concerned that aggressive prosecution of the communist agents I knew to be on the Russite payroll would see me branded as a dictator. It was a little disconcerting to receive tacit approval for a pogrom. I could only conclude that I had been overestimating the moral delicacy of the other western democracies. A foolish mistake, considering they had been quite happy to wage a war of aggression against the Empire and impose a ruinous peace.

I managed to muster up a smile. "Ah, well, that's a relief."

In all honesty, their approval didn't change my plans one bit. Whatever foreigners might think, my fellow citizens would hardly approve of a wholesale slaughter of their peers. Better to go after the scofflaws in leadership through all legal means and put most of my focus on the economy. I was confident that much of the communist rank and file would change their minds once they had a steady job, full belly, and a warm roof over their heads.

On the other hand, I might be able to use the common ground of anti-communist sentiment to my own ends. After all, I did want to undermine that damned Treaty of Triano. It wasn't something that I could accomplish quickly, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

"Of course," I continued, after taking a moment to gather my thoughts, "the true source of communist unrest is the Rus Union."

I received nods of agreement all around, though neither man said anything.

"Imagine what will happen once the vast natural wealth of the Rus is harnessed by modern industry," I continued. "Instead of supporting revolution abroad, they will simply be able to impose communism at gunpoint."

That drew a raised eyebrow from Mr. Lloyd and a snort of disbelief from his American counterpart.

"Those boys spent years getting nowhere against the Akis," Mr. Johnson said, "and you think they can roll over a white army?"

I held my tongue as I carefully set down my coffee cup. My political campaign had relied heavily on xenophobia that nearly rose to the level of racism. It was annoying to find that same force now standing as an obstacle in my way. On the plus side, I was starting to feel a lot less worried about whether I could manage to convey a warning about Pearl Harbor.

"The logistics of a march to Berun are much less taxing than a march to the Pacific," I said. "Not to mention that no army can perform well if it's denied the tools needed to fight."

Mr. Johnson just shook his head, while Mr. Lloyd favored me with a well-practiced meaningless smile. "Chancellor Degurechaff, please rest assured that we will respond appropriately to any sort of Russite adventurism. However, we can hardly give our approval for the rebuilding of the Imperial military."

There was some more small talk to be had, but that was about all that I could accomplish in terms of material results. The bottom line was that while everybody hated and feared the ability of the communists to organize an internal revolution, I was the only one who took seriously the threat of the Red Army marching out of the east to overrun Europe. I couldn't help but feel some frustration. On the other hand, I believe I was able to earn some international good will simply by holding a rational conversation with foreign diplomats. With every day that went by without me launching some ill-conceived invasion, that good will would only increase.

That left the problem that my own citizens were primed to grow increasingly upset with every day went by that I failed to launch some ill-conceived invasion.

Well, not all of my fellow citizens. After all, I was the leader of a government coalition. My own party of war maniacs only accounted for thirty-two percent of the vote. In order to get over fifty percent we had allied ourselves with other parties that sympathized with our revanchism but who were far less eager to plunge headfirst back into war. You could call them the Stability Bloc. They didn't like hyperinflation, they didn't like communism, they didn't like the Francois, and they weren't too fond of democracy. In short, they wished that life could be how it was in the Empire before the war.

The overall result was a sort of high-low alliance. The Germanian Workers Party had a large number of voters and enthusiastic supporters, most of them from the lower classes. Our allies boasted far more of the elite movers and shakers among their ranks. They were perfectly comfortable with authoritarian leadership but had no interest in a revolution. Their support for me as Chancellor was a calculated gamble.

Fortunately for them, I was a reasonable person.

My first two weeks in office were consumed in a whirlwind of meetings and paperwork. I'd had a general idea of the state of the country during those halcyon days as a powerless back-bencher, but I needed a much firmer grasp of the relevant details if I was going to provide firm guidance as my ideas were translated into official policy. Briefings and committee meetings were poised to consume my life for the foreseeable future. In my scant free time, I met with prominent members of the community. As with my meeting with the foreign ambassadors, I did my best to assuage their doubts. To tell them that yes, things would be changing, but only as needed to deal with the current crisis. And that I certainly had no intention of invading anybody.

All in all, it felt like things were going pretty well. However, that still left me to deal with the large section of the electorate that had been chomping at the bit for war. Such a thing could not be accomplished in individual meetings. Instead, I had to turn to cutting edge mass media and schedule a radio appearance. I had avoided the radio during campaign season because I couldn't afford it. Now that I was Chancellor, I could shamelessly expropriate valuable airtime in the name of the public good.

I'll admit that I felt some nervousness in the hours leading up to the broadcast. By now I was well over any fear of speaking in front of a crowd, but to simply speak into a microphone and be heard by millions of people was on a whole other level. In order to distract myself, I even resorted to reading the local newspaper. At least I was able to find some good news.

"Elya, did you read this morning's Berun Post?"

She looked up from her desk, startled. I'd been pretty quiet as I spent most of the afternoon procrastinating.

"Most of it," she said. "Why?"

"The communists made the front page," I said, holding up the story in question for her to see.

The big news the previous week had been the arrest of major Communist Party figures. We had them dead to rights with proof showing they were more or less on Moskva's payroll. In addition to the arrests, we had seized quite the pretty penny from their party coffers. I'd also gotten to release what I thought was a compelling statement condemning foreign meddling in our elections that ran in papers throughout the country. That sort of scandal was rather dry, though, compared to the latest bombshell.

The largest regional branch of the Communist party had been under the control of a husband and wife team. Quite progressive. And romantic, I suppose. Tarnished, now, by the fact that the husband had caught his wife in bed with his trusted lieutenant. After killing them both, he shot himself in the head.

"I saw that," Elya said, "yes."

She looked at me with a trace of expectation in her eyes. It was still strange to have somebody other than Visha hanging on my every word. I took a moment to clear my throat and gather my thoughts.

I did have a reason beyond idle gossip for broaching the subject. It was, of course, always entertaining to watch communists kill each other. Even more so if the pressure we were putting on them by cutting off their Russite money was making them crack. However, a wounded animal was at its most dangerous when pushed into a corner. While the leaders of the communist party seemed content to wait until they had the clear upper hand before they called for a revolution, a leaderless mob of communists could kick up quite a ruckus.

"Well, everybody knows the communists are a bunch of degenerates," I said. "You still need to be careful, though."

The silver lining to the situation was that an angry mob would naturally not be capable of any kind of sophisticated strategy. As long as Elya kept her ear to the ground they shouldn't be able to surprise us. If she really stayed on her game we could even defuse the trouble before it started.

"Honestly," I continued, "I'd rather the communists didn't show up in the paper for a while."

"Understood!" Elya said, nearly straightening into a salute before jotting down a few notes in her notebook.

She did get enthusiastic about the strangest things. Well, talented people were entitled to a few eccentricities. I put the matter out of my mind and turned my attention to the other person in the room.

"How does the speech look, Visha?"

Visha's head popped up from the binder that she had been poring over. She looked at me, then glanced down at the binder, eyes darting back and forth as she skimmed over one last page. Finally she looked up and seemed to brace herself before she spoke.

"Ah, I checked all the facts and figures, they're fine," she said. She hesitated a moment before continuing. "But..."

"What?"

"The speech seems, kind of," she said, searching for the right word, "informal."

That was certainly true. The idea of democracy was still new to Germania, so politicians modeled themselves after the traditional forms of leadership. In other words, they tended to talk like landed nobility. Their speeches announcing government policies tended to be more in the nature of proclamations than any kind of persuasion.

I had no intention to follow that model. I knew that one of the most important tools in a politician's kit was simply to be liked. I would never commission polling on an insipid question like which candidate voters would rather share a beer with, but there was no harm in speaking to voters with respect. I would never truly possess the common touch. The bottom line is that I don't like most people. Still, I could at least try to fake it.

Of course, Visha wasn't such a stickler for propriety that a casual speech would really bother her. I knew she was searching for a polite way to talk around what was really bothering her.

"A little boring, too, compared to the campaign?" I asked.

"Well..." Visha said, not meeting my eyes.

"The medium is the message."

"What?"

"Somebody who comes to a political rally is there for the excitement. The crowd feeds on the energy of the speech and feeds it back as well. People leave with their blood boiling not just because of the words I say, but because of the whole experience," I said. "On the radio, it's more like I've been invited into a home for a polite conversation. The broadcast goes out to a million homes at once, but each audience is in its own separate world. If I tried to give the same speech the same way I would at a crowded bar, I would just sound silly."

Of course, it was still possible to give a rousing speech over the radio. Especially for me, with ample future experience with mass media available as a source of inspiration. The most important change in context, though, was my own. During the campaign I was an outsider happy to shovel red meat out as fast as I could, confident that I would never have to answer for my promises. Now I was in power, and wanted nothing more than to calm down the citizenry.

More bluntly, during the campaign I wanted to rouse my audience to demand more from their government; now I wanted to lull them into complacently accepting less.

"So this new radio style speech," Visha said, "what should it be like?"

"Imagine a guest, sitting at a kitchen table," I said, "politely explaining government policy over a cup of coffee."

"Hmm," Visha said, looking down at the binder once more. "I guess I can see that."

"Good, because it's time for us to go."

It was indeed the appointed hour. The three of us left our seats and headed out of my office. I retrieved my notebook from Visha as we made our way downstairs. Soon we arrived downstairs to find a car waiting for us. The late model sedan had more than enough room for the three of us in the back. Our small motorcade was soon underway.

Even in a relatively impoverished nation, being the boss had some perks. I tried not to become too attached to what were sure to be transient luxuries, but it was nice not to have to walk everywhere.

It was also nice to have the power to order other cars out of the way. We arrived at the broadcast station a little ahead of schedule and headed inside together with a small police escort. In a real fight, of course, our trio of mages would be the ones protecting the police, but they did an adequate job of keeping the public at bay until we reached the door.

Once inside, we headed directly to the studio where the broadcast was to take place. We got there in time to listen as the announcer, a man with a face made for radio, finished reading off the last of the evening news. It took a few minutes, but all too soon I heard my cue.

"As promised, it is now time for this station to deliver a vital message from our leader. It's my honor to introduce Chancellor Tanya von Degurechaff!"

As he spoke I stepped forward to take my place at the table behind the second microphone. At the same time, I did my best to suppress the butterflies that were trying to reappear in my stomach. My earliest efforts at public speaking had involved rallying troops to battle. Back then, the danger of the upcoming fighting had easily overwhelmed my fear of public speaking. When I was out on campaign it was usually in front of small crowds that provided immediate feedback. Despite all of my experience, the idea of simply speaking into a microphone and reaching the whole country-and then continuing to talk with no idea of how my audience liked what I was saying-it was daunting.

Still, there was no way out but through. I'd certainly pushed myself through uncomfortable situations before. All that I had to do was follow the plan. It was with that thought in mind that I took a deep breath, gave my notes one final glance, and began.

"Good evening. I am here today to explain your government's plan to respond to the current financial crisis," I said. My experience came through in keeping my voice smooth, at least, and I felt myself start to relax as I got into the rhythm of the speech. "First of all, the government will be issuing a new currency. The value of each new mark will be set at two trillion paper marks."

Ordinarily, opening a speech with a talk about currency valuation was a good way to get the audience to tune out. These weren't ordinary times, though. With the mark's value plummeting by the day any hint of an inflation-fighting plan should have my listeners glued to their seats.

"Fortunately, while our enemies looted our stores of gold and silver, our country was blessed with too much coal for even the greediest foreign army to carry away," I continued. "The new currency will be backed by an appropriate amount of coal. At the very least, exchanging the new marks for coal will be a more efficient way to heat your home than simply setting paper marks on fire."

Due to the one way nature of broadcast communication, I couldn't see the crowd's reaction to my joke. I doubted that one was getting any more than a polite chuckle, though, so I continued on after only a brief pause. It didn't take too long to explain some of the practicalities surrounding the change of currency. I also explained that government policy in the future would place keeping inflation under control as one of its primary objectives.

It was, as Visha had noticed, a rather sedate presentation, but I felt the speech was serving its purpose. My Minister of Finance had identified two problems that worked together to fuel hyperinflation: first, the actual loss of value in the mark, and second, the fact that everybody expected the mark to continue to lose value. We could fight the actual loss of value by printing a mineral-backed currency. Changing people's expectations would require a war of public perception. This speech was the opening salvo in that war.

Once I felt I had gotten my point across, I switched to the second topic of the evening.

"Of course, a strong Germania must be built on the foundation of a strong economy. And a strong economy must be built on the twin pillars of a sound currency and a strong banking system," I said. "I've already discussed our efforts to strengthen the mark. Now I would like to take a moment to discuss the government's plans to improve our regulation of Germania's banks."

The financial regulations in Germania were extremely light, even after the Great War. Traditionally, banks were kept in check by consideration of their reputations and the need to stay on the good side of society's upper crust. The upheaval caused by losing the war had loosened many of the traditional constraints. I intended to have the government step in and clamp down on risky behavior before things could get too far out of hand.

While I was still a bit miffed at being forced to grant the banks the great boon of loan revaluation, there was a silver lining. It would have been very difficult to outright impose onerous new regulations on the banking system, given my coalition partners. Framing many of the new regulations as conditions to participate in the revaluation and in the voluntary deposit insurance system allowed me to do an end around any Reichstag obstruction. I was happy to use any tool available to me to disaster-proof our banking system.

There was almost certainly a major depression on the way, after all. It would have been nice to use my knowledge of the future to predict the market and earn a major profit. Unfortunately, the current situation was just different enough from my previous life that I couldn't predict the timing of the crash with any certainty. Playing the market would only pay off if I was lucky, and in a world with Being X I refused to rely on luck. The best that I could do was to try to build breakwaters to protect against the coming flood.

Of course, my audience was not likely to be interested in the nitty gritty of banking regulation. I briefly described how deposit insurance would work, reiterated my claim that Germania's banking system would soon be the finest in the world, and moved on to my final topic.

"Finally, I am pleased to announce that the newly formed Department of Public Works will be pursuing a series of projects to unleash the potential of the Germanian people," I said. "These projects will provide a living wage to anybody who is willing and able to work hard to help build our country's new foundation."

Sometimes I felt like a bit of a failure as a time traveler. I hadn't introduced any new inventions that would allow me to change the world or even just get rich. Really, though, I thought my failure mostly came down to bad luck. By the turn of the twentieth century technology had advanced pretty far already. A layman's understanding of gunpowder wasn't enough to spark off a revolution the way it would have been in Roman times. On the other hand, at least I had been born into a world that already had flush toilets.

Besides the relatively limited distance of my journey back in time, there was the fact that I wasn't an engineer by trade. I knew how to use modern technology, but for the most part I was unable to build it. Unfortunately, a working knowledge of Excel macros just wasn't much use in my new life.

My surprise election to the Chancellorship had offered me the chance to save a bit of face as a man from the future. While I didn't know how to build a road or hook up an electrical line, I did know what a country with modern infrastructure looked like. While government projects were inherently wasteful, at least I could make sure that the major projects that we built would be useful once they were complete. Some day the country might even thank me for improving the roads and electrical system, although more likely everybody would take such things for granted once they were built.

The immediate purpose of those projects, of course, was to put men to work. It wasn't a sustainable method to reduce unemployment. A government that tries to spend money in order to fuel the economy will find over the long run that it's trying to fill a hole with no bottom. For my purposes, though, the payoff was much simpler: young men who were busy building roads were young men with no time for revolution.

"And so the government intends to exert itself to the utmost in order to provide a sound currency, a healthy banking system, and modern infrastructure," I concluded. "If the people stand together, Germania will once more stand as the jewel of the world!"

I did not mention the Francois in any but the most oblique terms. The speech as a whole didn't touch on one bit of foreign policy. All I did was talk about how my domestic plans would help the people of Germania.

I could have tried to explain why I was adopting a passive stance towards our neighbors. I could have tried to explain the foolishness of invading the Francois Republic. I could have tried to justify my change of heart. I could have done those things, if I were helplessly naive.

As a politician intent on breaking her campaign promise, the last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to my deception. Instead, I intended to keep the people occupied with other things until my pledge to destroy the Francois faded from common memory. Eventually, should anybody dare to bring it up, I could brazenly dismiss my perfidy as old news.

Deceiving the public was a sin, but in the end I thought it was a reasonable thing to do in exchange for peace in our time.

For the next six months I largely maintained a low profile and focused my energy on making sure that the rollout of my domestic initiatives proceeded smoothly. Somewhat to my surprise, everything went exactly according to plan.

My speech received mixed reviews from the nation's newspapers. Our polling, though, showed that the speech caused a significant increase in public confidence in my handling of the economy. This result was further confirmed as the new currency went in to circulation. By and large the people seemed willing to treat the new mark as if it were as good as gold. Or, I suppose, coal.

Inflation wasn't completely stopped in its tracks, of course, but compared to the situation at the time of the election it was as different as night and day. Any sophisticated calculation of our nation's economic well being would no doubt show us lagging behind the rest of Europe, let alone the height of the Empire. When a nation had been bracing itself for a fall into the abyss, though, any sort of improvement would be well-received.

The new banking regulations went into effect more or less unremarked. The overwhelming majority of banks bought into deposit insurance and made the corresponding changes in their operations, which included opening their books for inspection by regulators. Nothing dramatic happened as a result, but I held out hope that the changes would show their value in the next economic crisis.

The public works projects did their job, picking young men up out of unemployment and keeping them busy all day. It was too early for the projects themselves to show their value, but the secondary effects were already being felt. With the work force being paid in cash and traveling all around the country, together with the usual spending habits of young men, the devolution of the countryside into the barter system was already beginning to reverse itself. Cash was beginning to circulate through the country in a reasonable facsimile of a healthy economy.

Things were going so well that the communists didn't even make a nuisance of themselves. I thought they would cause a ruckus when the final sentences were pronounced on those leaders who had collaborated with foreign agents, but it went by without a murmur of protest. I expected that our public projects had stolen some of their thunder, but the complete lack of response was a surprise. It was almost as if the whole communist leadership apparatus had disappeared. I could only surmise that the foreign corruption had run deeper than we realized, leading the commies to flee in fear of further investigation.

All in all, I felt pretty good about the future when I sent out the official notice that we would not be able to make our scheduled payment and that, per the Treaty of Triano, we were calling for a meeting in order to discuss how to remedy the situation. As the heir to sixty years of modern development when it came to stifling bureaucracy, I felt confident in my ability to tie those primitive yahoos up for at least a month or two with paperwork alone.

Things were finally looking up.

ooOoo

President Mirande was scowling when General Weygande entered his office. As a man who had held on to his job through the ongoing post-war culling of the military, Weygande knew better than to say anything and risk drawing his superior's ire. Instead he simply stood at parade rest and waited for Mirande to break the silence.

"You've heard of this... travesty."

The missive the President indicated was a document that Weygande hadn't seen before, but he well knew what it contained. He felt his blood heating up in anger at just the thought of it. Those Imperial dogs were meant to be held down by the Treaty of Triano. The document may as well have been written with the blood of the many, many Francois soldiers who had made the ultimate sacrifice during the war. For the Devil to think to use it to bind the hands of the Francois themselves was an unforgivable insult.

"What are your orders?"

Instead of answering him directly, Mirande studied his face for a long moment before answering his question with a question. "How many troops would you need in order to make your way through Germania and do as you please? Would the 32nd corps be enough?"

"That..." Weygande began, before catching himself. The 32nd corps boasted 20,000 infantry together with supporting brigades of armor, air, artillery, and aerial mages. On paper, the Germanians had nothing to oppose the "four As" of modern combat, and their army was too small to be able to triumph by way of human wave tactics. It was a force that should indeed let him act as he pleased... and yet, he still felt a prickling on the back of his neck at the thought of simply nodding in agreement.

"If I'm to beard the Devil on her home ground," Weygande said, "some additional aerial mage support would not go amiss."

"You shall have it."

General Weygande nodded. Even if the Devil of the Rhine was hiding some trick up her sleeve, there was a limit to the forces she could possibly have at her command. The Empire had always boasted of top notch aerial mages, and the Devil had come up through that branch of the service. It wasn't out of the question that she could possess some clandestine combat orbs. Still, with an overwhelming weight of aerial mage numbers on his side, Weygande felt confident he could wear down even the Devil in time. "What am I to do, exactly?"

"What else do you do when somebody refuses to pay their debts?" Mirande asked. "March over there and take what we're owed."

ooOoo


	12. Chapter 12

_AN: All according to keikaku._

ooOoo

I had long known that Elya had hired many of her former co-workers in the intelligence corps to work for our polling operation. I approved, of course. I was hardly in a position to condemn anybody engaging in a bit of nepotism and in any event I was happy to have as many aerial mages as possible working honest jobs. I could only imagine the kind of chaos a well-trained mage could cause if they turned to a life of crime.

I was a little taken aback when I discovered that some of her subordinates were keeping active in their old roles as gatherers of military intelligence. In general I didn't approve of anybody moonlighting when they were on my payroll, however indirectly. It was hard to be too upset with them, though, when the discovery was coupled with the delivery of vital information.

"The Francois have mobilized the 32nd corps. They are gathering at Saint-Avold, near the border," Elya announced. "The entire corps will be in place and ready to receive further orders within the next two or three days."

The room fell silent as she finished speaking. None of the people here were prone to shock or despair, but they all understood the significance of this news. Everybody sitting around the table had a look of concern on their face.

I had gathered my closest confidantes together for this meeting. Besides myself and Elya, the only people I had invited were Visha, General Lergen, and General Zettour. For something this monumental it was important to hash out some kind of workable plan even before sharing the news with the cabinet.

The experienced General Zettour finally broke the silence.

"The 32nd," he said, stroking his chin in thought, "that should be 20,000 men. Not to mention the supporting battallions of artillery, aircraft, armored cavalry, and aerial mages."

There was another moment of silence. I was a bit startled when I realized everybody was looking at me. It still felt strange, being General Zettour's superior. Part of me still instinctively wanted to curry favor with the old man and anticipate his orders, but these days it was actually his job to offer me advice. It was my responsibility to take charge and make a decision. I needed to start by taking control of the meeting.

"General Lergen, what would happen if the army tried to go toe to toe with the 32nd corps?" I asked.

"We could slow them down, but that's about it," General Lergen said. He had a sour expression on his face, no doubt upset by the sorry state of our military. "If I scraped the border forces to the bone I could gather around 40,000 men. More realistically our primary force would consist of 30,000 troops. Our men are better trained than the Dacians, but no amount of training can make up for the fact that we lack the tools to fight in a modern war."

Well, it was about what I expected. Although, it wasn't true that we completely lacked the tools of a modern army. This didn't seem to me like a time to be coy about our capabilities. I was about to say something when General Lergen finally acknowledge the knowing looks he was getting from Visha and Elya with a rueful smile and a shake of his head.

"With an augmented battalion of combat mages we could give them a bloody nose, but it wouldn't be enough to change the outcome," Lergen said. "Even if the Francois don't know about our specific capabilities, they are well aware of our Chancellor's background. They won't be leaving any anti-aerial mage weaponry at home."

Visha looked a little offended by his analysis but I found I couldn't disagree. I had always expected our aerial mages to be a unit that could at best snatch some small victories on the strength of strategic surprise. In the face of a paranoid enemy all that we could do was engage in some pointless slaughter before being overwhelmed ourselves. It would be a profligate waste of human resources to seek out that kind of pitched battle.

"Do you have any other units available that might tip the balance on the battlefield?" I asked. I wasn't holding out much hope. At best I figured he had a company or two of tanks and planes stashed up in Daneland. It was a little ridiculous to ask for him to pull a secret army out of his pocket with enough firepower to drive off a full combined arms corps.

General Lergen humored me by thinking over the question for a moment before replying. "No."

He didn't elaborate on the exact nature of the reserve forces he had available. I thought it was a little paranoid to hide such information even in such a small meeting. I'd learned over the course of the war, though, to trust Lergen's judgment, so I didn't press him on it.

"Whether we can stop them or not, isn't this strange?" Visha asked. "The 32nd corps is far too large for a raiding group but not nearly large enough to occupy the country."

It was strange, now that she mentioned it. If the Francois wanted to mount a proper invasion they'd be mobilizing army groups with hundreds of thousands of men, not just a single corps. If they wanted to scout ahead and pave the way for an invasion force while they were still getting the rest of their troops in order, a full corps was an unwieldy tool for the job. If they just wanted to destroy some particular thing or another-such as an inconvenient Chancellor, for example-putting 25,000 men on the job was an exorbitant waste. Despite that, as Visha said, 25,000 men, no matter how well equipped, could never properly occupy the whole country.

Occupy. Something about the word tickled at my memory. I'd only ever had an amateur's enthusiasm for military history, so my knowledge of the time between my world's two world wars was sketchy at best. Still, it seemed familiar. Occupy. Occupying. Occupation. Occupation?

The occupation of the Ruhr! I could only dimly recall the details, but the basic story of a country snatching a modest material gain in exchange for a horrific public relations hit had stuck in my mind, even after all this time.

"They intend to occupy the Rhine industrial area," I said. "They've plundered everything they could from our government's coffers, so now they plan to steal from our citizens directly. The 32nd corps is about the right size to garrison the area. Besides being wealthy enough to target, the location is also convenient for shipping their loot back home."

Everybody stared at me for a moment. Elya, bless her heart, found the relevant map and laid it out on the table. Nobody said anything for a long moment, occupied by studying the terran and transportation links. I was happy to see that the map confirmed my hunch: if you were looking to get rich quick and had an army backing you up, the Rhine industrial zone was definitely the place to go.

"Turning an army to organized banditry?" Zettour said. "I suppose there are historical precedents."

"Even if we set up defensive lines," Visha said, tracing the terrain with her finger, "it wouldn't be worth much, I guess."

She was right. Even if we were given copies of the enemy's orders, let alone just predicting their actions, there wasn't much we could do to stop them. Fortunately, as I realized once I took a moment to think things over, stopping them shouldn't be necessary.

In all honesty, the most likely reason for the army to be mobilized was not for an occupation but as a negotiation tactic. In our modern day and age no country would just launch an invasion unless they concluded that further discussion with the other side was completely pointless. I was a reasonable person and I was willing to negotiate a reasonable settlement of our debts, even to the point of submitting myself to exile. The 32nd corps would never even need to cross the border.

Still, there was no harm in discussing what I would do in the unlikely event that the Francois were foolhardy enough to launch such a half-baked invasion. Giving my subordinates something to do would help to calm them down and everybody would be happily surprised when everything was resolved through peaceful discussion.

"I wouldn't seek out a pitched battle right now regardless of our chances," I said. "It's rude to interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake."

"A mistake?" Zettour asked.

I smiled at the nostalgic feeling of explaining a new view on war to my old superior. It was always a pleasure to discuss interesting hypotheticals with an intelligent man.

"The Francois Republic may be able to push us around for now, but in the long run they can't possibly sustain that advantage as long as we exert ourselves properly," I said. "The real problem is what stands behind them."

"Albion," Zettour said. "And the Unified States."

"Exactly. We need a wedge driven between them," I said. "It would be impossible for us to do it by ourselves, but an ugly occupation has a way of making allies keep their distance."

"Will it be an ugly occupation?"

Well, in reality there would be no occupation. But it was good to keep in mind what would happen if they were to invade. Even if our military couldn't impede the Francois, they would hardly be welcomed with flowers and hugs by the Germanian people.

"It usually is, when two nations hate each other," I said, before turning my attention to my secretary. "Elya, some of your subordinates may have to take up their old duties in order to help fan the flames."

I felt a little bad to be dragging people into a wartime role when they'd settled into civilian employment, but there was no doubt that they had the qualifications for it. Besides, everybody knew the dangers of going above and beyond your job requirement and catching the boss's eye: the universal reward for work well done is more work. In the end, once I hashed things out with the Francois the only real impact on Elya's subordinates would be a few days of unpaid overtime.

"Yes," Elya said, already jotting down plans.

"The most important thing is to be careful. Don't do anything that could get them caught," I said. I didn't need any of them running off half-cocked and causing an international incident. Also, if an occupation actually developed, the last thing we needed was to hand the Francois the propaganda coup of proof of our meddling. "Although we want to provoke the Francois into overreacting, it's also important that we receive reports of their misbehavior. With pictures, if possible."

The foreign press was hardly going to run with our reports of Francois atrocities, no matter how truthful. A picture, though, could speak for itself.

Elya nodded again, snapping her notebook shut after she finished writing. Next to her, General Lergen looked like he was troubled by something. I waited for a moment to see if he would volunteer what was bothering him but finally had to gesture at him to speak up.

"To benefit from our citizens' suffering..."

I should have expected it. General Lergen always had shown a remarkably healthy conscience for a senior officer in the Empire's military. It was natural that he would be uncomfortable with this kind of strategy.

"If I could crush the invasion force with impunity, naturally I would do that," I said. Although, honestly, that strategy hadn't even worked out for the Empire back when it had enjoyed a much better overall situation than our own. "Since I can't, and our citizens' suffering is inevitable, all we can do is ensure that the fatherland benefits from their sacrifice."

Hmm. It really was a lot easier to call for sacrifices than it was to be the one expected to make the sacrifice. I felt a little guilty to be parroting the kind of nonsense that I had mocked when high command had tried to sell it to me. Fortunately, I could comfort myself with the knowledge that I wouldn't be stumbling into a massive war over minor border violations, unlike our previous set of politicians.

ooOoo

One week later, I was feeling much less comfortable with the situation.

"The behavior of the Francois is an outrage!" I said. "Not only does it violate every principle of international law, but also the letter of the Treaty of Triano that they purport to enforce."

My audience didn't look all that impressed. It wasn't a surprise that the ambassadors from Albion and the Unified States would be partial to the Francois Republic's point of view. It had been three days since troops had crossed the border and made a beeline for the Rhine Industrial area. They probably thought I should be grateful that they were meeting with me at all. Honestly, they weren't exactly wrong. I'd issued ringing condemnations of the invasion for the benefit of our local press, of course, but with the tepid international response I had been starting to feel like I was talking to myself.

"The Francois claim that your failure to pay violated the Treaty of Triano," Mr. Lloyd said, calm as ever, "which they are now acting to enforce."

He might have been discussing the weather or his preferred brand of tea. No, he would have been more passionate about the tea.

"Fail to pay? I did no such thing. I merely put forth my interpretation of the nature of our obligation to pay. Specifically, that it is to be excused in the case of hardship such as Germania is now suffering," I said, a little irritated at being forced to explain. This had all been laid out in the letter. "Under article 27 of the treaty, paragraph c, clause roman two, section little b, in the event of a dispute as to the interpretation of the language used in the treaty, the signatories are to meet and come to a mutual agreement as to the meaning to be attributed to the language in question."

"That's certainly," he said, before pausing for a moment to search for the right word. "Certainly a creative interpretation of the treaty."

If he'd wanted me to help find loopholes before the treaty was signed, he could have hired me back then. It wasn't like I'd been too busy to take on the job. Since he hadn't, though, it was practically my duty to find every part of the treaty that might be useful for Germania and turn it to my own ends. I thought it was rather unsporting of the Francois to present their own arguments by way of their army.

"Well, what sort of brute responds to a perfectly reasonable dispute over interpretation with a military invasion?"

That prompted a laugh from Mr. Johnson, the American ambassador.

"For someone who spends half her time poking at a bull," he said, "you sure do act surprised by the horns."

I suppose he thought he was dispensing useful folk wisdom. I had to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and bite back the first two responses that came to mind. The Unified States was a massive industrial power. It wasn't worth offending them just because they had sent me an insufferable ambassador.

"Whatever I may have done to provoke the Francois in the past, this invasion is a naked act of unilateral aggression," I said. "Do you truly mean to let it stand?"

"The way I see it, this feud between you and the Francois ain't really any of my business."

What an admirable declaration of neutrality. If only the Unified States had been so enlightened as to pursue this policy during the previous war.

"The Allied Kingdom, naturally, wishes to see a peaceful resolution of the situation," Mr Lloyd said. "To that end, we have offered to mediate."

At last, somebody was talking sense. I sighed in relief before reaching for the proffered olive branch.

"Very well-"

"Unfortunately, the Francois insist that your outstanding debts under the Treaty of Triano be paid in full as a precondition to any meeting."

Ah. They didn't want a negotiation. They wanted my capitulation.

Why? Why was it so hard to negotiate my own surrender? My own exile? All I wanted was to preserve a few scraps of dignity as I toddled off the world stage. And, I suppose, some guarantees of my own safety. I didn't think that was too much to ask. I didn't expect the Francois to thank me for heading off a second Great War, but they seemed intent instead on rubbing my face in the dirt as much as they possibly could.

"If we could afford to pay in full," I said, "none of this would have happened in the first place!"

That was the crux of the problem. We could have come up with the money if I were willing to wantonly loot my own citizens the way the Francois were, but if I did that my government wouldn't last long enough to tender our surrender. The only purpose for such an unreasonable requirement was to drive us to the brink even before we reached the negotiating table.

"Be that as it may," Mr. Lloyd said, "I can assure you that we will continue to exert ourselves in order to bring about a negotiated settlement."

In other words, he promised nothing and would likely achieve nothing. Of course, if by some miracle something good did happen, he would be happy to take the credit.

I was utterly screwed.

Sure, the invasion should ultimately be a disaster for the Francois. Elya would make sure of that, although much of her work would just be gilding the lily. The problem was that it would be a disaster for me too.

I had promised during the campaign that we could crush the Francois if we were just willing to try. Here was a chance to put my money where my mouth was, and I was running to other countries to try and get them to call off the Francois. Every day they camped out on Germanian soil was another day that proved the impotence of the army under my command. I stood revealed as the worst kind of political liar: the kind who got caught.

All I could do was shift the blame as best I could to foreign countries instead of myself. That sort of scapegoating wouldn't work forever, though. At the end of the day, I was the Chancellor and my nation was facing a problem: if I couldn't fix it, the voters would hold me responsible. Even worse, I couldn't see the Francois treating me with any more mercy once I was voted out of office.

What a mess.

ooOoo

"What a bloody mess."

Foreign Secretary Oliver Henderson was enjoying a brief moment of solitude in his office. On second thought, perhaps enjoying was the wrong word.

Spread out before him were a selection of recent issues of the Manchester Guardian. The photographs featured prominently on the front page told the story of a disastrous occupation.

A young Germanian woman, sprawled on the ground at the feet of a leering Francois soldier as he reached for his belt buckle. A starving Germanian boy, all skin and bones, reeling back from the butt of a Francois soldier's rifle. A young Germanian man in civilian clothes, pistol to his head in the moment before summary execution.

Oh, the Francois had their excuses ready whenever he reached out to his counterparts in their government. The photos were misleading. The very presence of a photographer suggested a nefarious plot. The stories accompanying the photographs were all a pack of lies. But they never, ever tried to claim that the photographs themselves were fake.

The photos were real and captured events that had actually happened. The Francois just wished the public would draw different conclusions than the obvious from what they saw. Of course, any suggestions that the Albionese press be allowed access to the occupation zone in order to get out the real story were firmly rebuffed.

All this and the occupation had only been going on for six weeks. Henderson's instincts were screaming at him that this had all the signs of a disaster in the making. Being too closely associated with this debacle could not only hurt his party's standing at home, but also taint the reputation of His Majesty's government abroad.

Unfortunately, to oppose the Francois, or even to reduce the support on offer, was to aid Tanya von Degurechaff. It was quite the sticky wicket.

He was drawn from his thoughts by knock on his door. Looking up, he walked to the door to welcome the guests he'd been expecting.

First through the door was Archibald Lloyd, his ambassador to Germany. The man was a bit of a cold fish, but he had a solid head on his shoulders. Henderson could only admire his impeccable grooming; nothing about him betrayed the rushed trip that had only recently brought him back to the city. Lloyd wasn't exactly a frequent visitor to Henderson's office, but he was no stranger to Whitehall.

The other guest was rather more irregular. Lieutenant John Green had experienced perhaps the most unusual journey through the ranks of any soldier in the Great War. Initially an enlisted man, he had served as a volunteer aerial mage both in Norden and on the Rhine front. As a result of distinguished service he was awarded a battlefield promotion to Lieutenant and shuffled into the Africa Expeditionary Corps.

Following Albion's first disastrous direct encounter with the 203rd, Green was recognized as more or less the only officer who hadn't embarrassed himself. In a rather desperate move he was awarded a brevet promotion and put in command of the remaining three battalions of aerial mages. What followed were two years of an utter stalemate. The General Staff had at first been ecstatic at the news that the 203rd had been stymied. As time went by, they had grown more and more dissatisfied with Green's inability to win a decisive battle given his numerical advantage. When Degurechaff and the 203rd were transferred back to the continent, Green's rank had quietly been reverted back to Lieutenant and the man himself shifted to guard duty in Londinium.

It was an interesting story, but not one that would ordinarily have caught Henderson's interest. The reason for today's invitation, of course, was that the man had spent more flight hours than anybody outside of Germania sharing the sky with Degurechaff.

"Archie, damn good to see you," Henderson said, shaking Lloyd's hand and receiving a curt nod in response before turning to face Green. "Lieutenant."

"Sir."

"Well, I'll not beat around the bush," Henderson said, leading the two of them to a set of comfortable arm chairs spaced around a coffee table. "I'm being pressed to offer my opinion about the mess in the Rhine. Of course, any time I look at the situation it always circles back to Degurechaff."

Frowning, he turned to address Green first. "I have always felt you can't help but become familiar with someone you face across the battlefield. What can you tell me about her?"

"Put an orb in her hands and she's the best in the world. I never seen the American girl," Green said, then shrugged. "Anyone else, the devil was head and shoulders above. Man amongst boys, like."

"It was that bad?" Henderson asked. He did his best to push aside his irritation at the stamp of Liverpool that Green was barely trying to keep out of his voice and focus on gathering information. He'd heard the stories about Degurechaff, of course, but it was hard to tell truth from propaganda from tall tales.

"Rule was, thousand meters yellow, hundred meters red," Green said. "Get within a klick and lose track of her and the devil'll get you. Get close enough to be stood on the same football pitch, you're already dead."

Not for the first time, Henderson gave thanks to the fact that the civilian administration of the fallen Empire had been so far below the standard set by their military.

"I suppose we can be grateful that the Francois insisted on such thorough disarmament," he said, receiving another shrug in response. "How was she as a commander?"

"Well," Green began, before pausing, lost in thought for a moment, "the only way to put it, I figure, is careful."

"Careful? That's not a word I usually hear spoken about Degurechaff," Henderson said. Berserker. Maniac. Butcher. Those were some of the more restrained descriptions of Degurechaff's fighting style that he had seen.

"True enough, she's a demon in a scrap, when it's just her," Green replied. "But her men? Them she was very, very careful with."

"In Osfjord?" Henderson asked. He wasn't a professional military man, but even he knew that jumping from an airplane deep behind enemy lines wasn't anybody's idea of safe.

"Well, there's the trick," Green said. "Safe for a mage with a good orb isn't the same as safe for anybody else."

That was a fair point. Aerial mage combat was still a very new discipline. It was perfectly reasonable that yesterday's daring innovation could be considered today's standard tactic. In that case, the sheer shock present in all of the contemporaneous reports on Degurechaff was simply an indicator of how far behind the Allied Kingdom had been in its thinking.

"Watch the recordings, you start to see the same tricks," Green continued, warming to the subject. "Get in fast, find a weak spot, hit it hard, get out. Then do it all again."

Although, if Degurechaff was that far ahead of her time, in both tactical acumen and magical technology, that did raise an obvious question.

"So all that time in Africa?"

"Keep your spacing, stay disciplined, don't show any weakness," Green said, then shrugged, "the devil'll wait to take you another day."

It was a casual way to describe years of painstaking and ultimately thankless effort. Henderson didn't embarrass the man by making a fuss. The people who Green cared about already understood what he had accomplished. That ought to be enough.

"So if we were to wash our hands of the matter, what do you think she'd do about the occupation?" Henderson asked. He could already guess at what Green would say, but with the man in front of him it was worth hearing him out.

"If she can make it an easy fight then she'll fight. If winning isn't worth it she won't bother," Green said. "Cold girl, the devil."

Henderson nodded, then turned to face the other man at the table. Ambassador Lloyd had been listening attentively to Green's account. It was time to hear his thoughts.

"Archie?"

"She's very driven. Resolute," Ambassador Lloyd said, "and she certainly has her share of that Germanian self-righteous hyper-literalism."

He paused for a moment to fill a glass with water from the carafe on the table, then took a sip before he continued.

"On the other hand, she's never threatened or even hinted at military action," he said. "In person, she gives quite a different impression than one receives from reading her speeches."

Lloyd looked down at his glass for a moment, idly tilting it back and forth.

"Does she have something to do with the frogs' troubles? More than likely," he said. "Would she launch some futile war absent our guiding hand? I doubt it."

Henderson thanked the men for their time and saw them to the door. That done, he wandered back over to his desk and looked at those newspaper photographs again, lost in thought.

It was vital to the interests of the Allied Kingdom that the Empire not rise again. It was also vital that no other hegemon rise to a position of dominance on the continent. He would honestly have been a bit worried if the occupation were going smoothly. It was a perilously short step from occupation to annexation, sometimes.

Perhaps it would be wise to take a step back. Let the Francois keep paying in blood for the wealth they were so keen to get their hands on. They would certainly do their part to stomp even the idea of the Empire out of the Germanians. After a few more months of bloodletting, both sides should welcome the reappearance of a level-headed mediator from Albion.

Yes, it seemed for the best to let the Francois and the Germanians sort out their own affairs for the moment.

ooOoo

There was a small, nicely appointed conference room just off of my personal office. Deep in the heart of the most highly protected building in Germania, it was built to an exquisite standard of soundproofing. Truly, an ideal place to discuss official secrets.

"This keeps getting worse! I didn't even think it was possible!"

It also served quite nicely as a venue where I could vent my feelings. At the moment, I was pacing back and forth, gesturing wildly as I spoke. Visha sat at the conference table in the middle of the room, watching me with sympathy.

Whether as a political leader or a military officer, showing doubt in front of my underlings was strictly forbidden. They looked to me for cues on how to react in unexpected situations. An uncertain commander made for uncertain morale. That kind of thing could easily turn a temporary setback into a strategic defeat.

Even I, though, could not remain completely stoic over the long years of slowly deteriorating conditions as we lost the last war. Visha, as my longest serving subordinate, had willingly shouldered the position of sounding board and sympathetic ear. In front of her I could rant and rave to my heart's content about the idiotic decisions of high command and their habit of burying their mistakes in piles of dead soldiers. Once I had gotten those feelings out of my system I could resume my usual neutral demeanor and do my best to salvage a series of increasingly bleak situations.

It had been a few years, but she easily slipped back into the role. I felt a little awkward at the fact that the idiotic decisions I was complaining about had been my own, but anger was a versatile tool that allowed me to sweep my shame to the side and blame others for my own failings.

"Aren't things going according to your plan?" Visha asked.

It was certainly true that we had accomplished my goal of provoking the Francois into bad behavior. The problem was that it was too much, too fast. I had been planning for a situation where my voters' anger could be assuaged by mere reassurances that I was working on the problem.

"I didn't plan for the Francois to be quite this foolish," I said. "I expected them to mistreat the population, not to indulge themselves in rape and murder!"

Once it was a matter of life and death, it was only natural that people demand action. Accountability. Such a joke. If I had dedicated my life to one thing, it was of course to avoid the senseless destruction of human life. If were to expand the list to a second item, it was to avoid being held accountable to others' unreasonable expectations.

"Can't we fight back now?" Visha said, gesturing at the table in front of her. "Albion won't interfere."

The table was covered with notes regarding the current situation on the Rhine. Here and there computation orbs had been pressed into duty as paper weights after I had looked over the video stored within to pick out the most poignant moments to be turned into photographs. Currently occupying pride of place on the table was the diplomatic missive that had prompted this meeting.

What a poisonous reward for weeks of diplomacy. A letter from the Allied Kingdom making clear their position on this occupation: they wanted it to end, but they wouldn't actually do anything about it. To that end, they were more or less publicly stating that they were willing to ignore any fighting that occurred on Germanian soil while keeping open their offer to mediate a negotiated end to the conflict.

It was a master stroke that had knocked out one of the pillars I had been relying on to support my position. When my voters called for us to fight back, I always had the excuse available that however easily we might defeat the Francois, we had to be cautious or their allies would intervene. Now that fig leaf had been taken away, exposing my campaign rhetoric as the empty boasts it had always been.

"Those perfidious bastards!" I said. "If we push harder in guerrilla warfare, the Francois will retaliate in kind. Of course Albion is happy to stand back and watch us kill each other."

We certainly couldn't manage an open assault on the Francois military. The 32nd corps had initially commandeered housing in Duisbusch, one of the major cities in the Rhine industrial area. A steady trickle of soldiers had proceeded to "go missing." When normal levels of vigilance had proven unable to stem their losses, the Francois had relocated to a large plain outside of town where they had established a fortified camp. At the moment it was merely a collection of tents surrounded by trenches, barbed wire, and watchtowers, but the artillery and aerial mages stationed within rendered it an impregnable fortress. Even if the aerial mages under my command were able to sneak close and launch an assault, there was a limit to the damage they could dish out before being overwhelmed.

"We can't do anything, but we can't just do nothing," I continued. "Every day we stand by is another day for the Francois to visit their depredations on our citizens."

And on our voters. Damn it, there was a reason I wanted to be safe and comfortable in exile. Let my successor suffer from the inevitable losses and humiliation.

Visha stood, then, and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. "You'll think of something. You always do."

It should have been a meaningless platitude, but even I could be moved by a subordinate who showed true faith in my abilities. I sighed, letting the tension drain out of me, then took a seat at the table. Perhaps another look over the situation would jog loose an idea.

The Allied Kingdom had gotten one over on me. There was no shame in that. It was a bit shameful, though, to whine about being outplayed. I was fortunate that Visha wouldn't hold it against me.

"You're always able to calm me down," I said. "You'll make a fine wife some day."

She blushed and looked away. As always, my assistant was more comfortable handling incoming artillery fire than a compliment.

The buzz of the intercom broke the momentary silence. I leaned over and hit the button to accept the incoming call. "Yes?"

"Chancellor!" Elya said, her excitement unmistakable even through the poor sound quality of the primitive transmission. "An old friend of yours is here. He says he knows the key to ending the occupation!"

I frowned. An old friend... to be honest, I didn't have that many old friends. Most of the people who qualified were people I saw every day. I had no idea who this could be. Still, Elya wasn't the sort of person who would accept something like that without verifying it for herself. Perhaps I was forgetting somebody. I shrugged and indicated for Visha to open the door.

As the door swung open my mind went blank for a moment. An automatic form of self-defense, perhaps.

Framed in the doorway was a gaunt figure dressed in tattered robes. His hair was an unruly mess. His beard didn't look like it had been cared for in years. All in all, the man is the very image of a hermit or a monk. To complete the look he had a glint of fanaticism in his eyes.

A very familiar glint of fanaticism.

"I dreamed of this day!" Doctor Adelaide von Schugel, one of the nation's foremost scientists, cast his arms wide as he cried out in joy. "What an honor it is to have safeguarded the instrument of God's will!"

He reached inside his robe and fumbled with something for a moment. I saw Visha and, behind him, Elya both tense up, but I remained calm. Doctor Schugel was never one to present a physical threat to me, after all. I watched not with alarm but with weary resignation as he drew forth an object that I had not seen in years, unless one counted my nightmares.

I'd almost forgotten just how small and unassuming the Elenium Arms Type 95 computation orb was when it lay dormant in the hands of a civilian.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Our new named aerial mage has a noticeable Scouse accent. I'm not one for the Rowling-style phonetic accent spelling so I just had the other character notice it and tried to convey the gist of it via word choice. Scouse is, to me, the accent on tv that most effectively tells you a character is English working class. For reference, he would sound like Dave Lister, while the other Allied Kingdom characters sound more like Grand Moff Tarkin._


	13. Chapter 13

_AN1: First few chapters have been cleaned up. There was a disturbing amount of present tense in there._

ooOoo

Captain Laurent Bisset walked out of his tent and looked up at the sun with a smile. Another beautiful day in Germania. As an aerial mage, he couldn't ask for much more than clear weather and total dominance of the sky.

He hadn't felt nearly so confident when the occupation began, two months ago. At the time, there were those who thought that High Command's decision to send six full battalions of aerial mages to accompany the occupation force was excessive. Captain Bisset, having had a brief and extremely unpleasant experience of a combat encounter with the Devil of the Rhine, had worried that they might not be enough.

As it turned out, all of his worries had been for nothing. The only danger he faced in Germania came from those damned spies and partisans attacking from ambush and fading away into the civilian population. The skies had proven to be a surprisingly safe posting.

Safe, but not always pleasant. He schooled his expression into a neutral mask before setting out to find his subordinates and deliver the bad news. As he half expected, he found his company in the rec tent, gathered around a radio. A voice that had become all too familiar over the last month was coming from the speakers.

"If the Francois think they can intimidate us with military threats, they'd should watch out! One day our patience will run out, and then-"

With a click, Bisset turned off the broadcast. It was hard to believe that a terrifying foe had been reduced to such useless bluster. Almost sad.

He put such thoughts out of his mind as he considered how to break the news to his troops. Well, he'd never been a smooth talker. Best to give it to them straight.

"We've been put on watch duty tonight. Graveyard shift."

One unfortunate side effect of attaching so many aerial mages to this mission was that the General in charge was free to come up with frivolous ways of spending their time. The latest innovation had come about after the army had been relocated to its fortified camp. The General had declared that a company of aerial mages was to stay in the air throughout the night in order to keep watch and provide an immediate response to any Germanian aggression.

Bisset agreed with the General's suspicion that the Germanian government was behind all the trouble they'd been facing. He couldn't argue with the idea that the aerial mage corps should do its part to keep their comrades in arms safe. The value and necessity of the work didn't make it any less unpleasant to stand watch all night. Nor did it do anything to stop his troops from grumbling.

He ignored their complaints with the ease of long practice.

"Second Platoon will be circling the perimeter. Third Platoon will conduct ranging patrols farther out. First Platoon will be with me on overwatch."

Overwatch duty was the least physically tasking of the aerial watch options. It was also the least mentally engaging. Floating in one place all night wasn't anybody's idea of a good time.

"Another boring night and we can't even sleep through it."

The complaint came from Amelie Royer, a young woman who had enlisted the day she turned sixteen, almost a year ago. Missing out on the Great War had let her preserve a certain sense of idealism about military service, although the realities of occupation duty were gradually wearing away at her worldview. It saddened Bisset to see such a bright spark dimming over time, even if the current circumstances were far kinder than the old days on the Rhine front.

"At least the view is beautiful."

The scenery around them was quite nice, but Bisset knew that his other rookie's eyes wouldn't be spending much time on the landscape. Ah, to be young again. Bisset shared a long-suffering look with his lieutenant, a fellow veteran of the Rhine. Military regulations didn't strictly forbid fraternization within the ranks, but some soldiers needed a few reminders before the understood the idea of appropriate time and place.

"You can enjoy the view of the kitchen for the rest of the week," Bisset said, shaking his head. "You kids will learn to appreciate the value of a boring assignment some day."

The work of a soldier consisted of long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror. Having experienced both, Bisset much preferred the boredom.

ooOoo

Clear skies and a moonless night. I couldn't ask for much more.

The Chancellor's Residence in Berun included a private rear courtyard that served quite nicely as a private aerial mage launching pad. I waited until night had thoroughly fallen before activating my Type 97 computation orb and rocketing up into the sky. I didn't waste any time savoring the feeling of flight. Being spotted on my way out would be quite troublesome.

Not that I was likely to be spotted. I was wearing a flight suit in solid black. My rifle had carefully had all of its exposed metal blacked out. My hair had been collected under a balaclava that also covered my face. Not a patch of bare skin was left to catch what little light there was. There were no magical detectors running this deep in Germanian territory, and I didn't think anybody could catch me with the naked eye. Still, better safe than sorry.

Once I reached a comfortable altitude of six thousand meters I settled down and took a look around. It was peaceful, up so high. Looking down on the streetlights below, it was hard to believe that millions of people down there were anxiously waiting for me to solve their problems. Even this time of night, if I set down on any random street I'd soon be surrounded by people who recognized me and knew my name. Once that mob turned on me, there would be nowhere to hide.

I wasn't happy with my plans for the night, but there was a reason I'd made my decision. Taking a deep breath, I gave the sleeping city of Berun one final look before setting off to the west.

Night flying was surprisingly meditative. With nobody else around me and no landmarks down below I was left with nothing to do but enjoy the feeling of the wind in my hair, look at the stars up above, and think. The stars were amazingly clear this high up. My thoughts, unfortunately, were not.

War was a tremendous waste of human resources. That was one reason I was so adamant in pursuit of peace. Peaceful conditions also allowed for people to come together and make the sort of mutually beneficial trades that were the hallmark of capitalism. So I hated to do anything that might lead to war. On the other hand, a secure peace was based on universal respect for the rules. If people think they can just walk around and steal things with impunity, then there's no true peace at all.

I'd like to sit down with the Francois and figure out why they thought our borders didn't matter. Perhaps they could even shed some light on the thinking of the Legadonians from so long ago. They refused to talk, though, with things as they were. Accordingly, I would have to act to adjust the status quo.

The lights of a new city came into view below more or less as they were supposed to. I didn't have to make the whole flight to the Rhine by dead reckoning, thankfully. By following the string of human settlements on the Ruhr, I was able to keep track of where I was and my approximate distance from the Francois invasion force.

Things got a little more complicated when I came within a hundred kilometers of the Francois. First, I pushed the Type 97 hard for a burst of speed. Then I cut off the flow of mana and shifted over to my second orb of the evening, the Junghans Mark Three. While not as fraught as the third orb I would be using, the Mark Three came with its own set of difficulties. Most notably, that it was never meant for flight operations.

Thanks to a great deal of practice, I was able to squeeze out just enough force from the Mark Three to counteract the force of gravity. My small stature was a big help there, although bringing along my rifle had nearly overloaded my carrying capacity. That left very little usable force available to keep me moving, perhaps enough to accelerate to a brisk walk. The initial velocity from the Type 97 helped, putting me in the position of slowing down the loss of speed rather than making a futile attempt to accelerate. Even so, the last leg of the journey took longer than all the rest put together.

I stuck with it, trading height for velocity. The hassle of using the Mark Three paid off as I closed in on the enemy camp without prompting any response from the Francois. I could sense the air patrols, just as Elya had reported. A platoon circling the camp at a distance, another platoon working its way around the fence line, and a final platoon on static overwatch duty at the center of the camp.

I drifted to a halt at the center of the camp. I was three thousand meters above the ground and approximately three thousand meters beneath the overwatch platoon. So far, everything was going according to plan. I pulled the Type 95 from my pocket and hesitated.

The small size of the Type 95 belied the power hidden within. The device had been a marvel of engineering even before Being X stuck his nose into things. Four cores in the space usually reserved for one, astounding mana throughput, it really was impressive. It just hadn't worked. Once Being X intervened, of course, it had become quite reliable, even if the side effects were troubling. I hadn't used it in years, though. It should be fine.

"Are you there, Being X? It's been a while."

There was no response. Beneath me, the campfires dotting the Francois encampment continued to flicker away. Glancing around revealed no supernatural phenomena nearby. Well, provided one didn't count the fact that I was floating 10,000 feet above ground under my own power.

It had been years, but I could still clearly picture our last encounter in my mind. After being pushed to my limits, I had broken down and voluntarily asked that bastard for his help. When he came through and delivered an unprecedented level of power, I had also felt a sense of smug satisfaction. After that, I'd never seen hide nor hair of Being X. While I assumed he was still meddling with my life and laughing at my misfortune, that was all my own supposition.

It was puzzling. Was that one moment of weakness all that he had ever wanted? I was no theologian, but I had never heard of any religion that would be satisfied with such a paltry show of faith. Honestly, a being that put people in dangerous situations and then offered bargains purporting to bail them out... that usually wasn't a being on the positive side of the pantheon.

I had never really gotten the impression that Being X was either god or devil, though. He just didn't have the sort of temperament I expected from a transcendental being. Instead, he seemed more like an overworked employee blowing off steam by complaining about his job. Possessed of great personal power, perhaps, but ultimately still just a stressed-out salaryman.

Perhaps I should have felt more sympathy for a kindred spirit. But, well, the bottom line was that if Being X were an employee at my company I would have fired him long ago. Poorly managing your workload and blaming your own mistakes on the customer were cardinal sins in the business world. Not to mention that, considering some of the things he had said, I had serious doubts whether Being X could pass a drug test.

It was difficult to wrap my head around the actions of something like Being X. He had the power to pluck my soul from my body at the moment of death and send it to a completely different universe. He could make an impossibility like the Type 95 come into being. And yet he was almost pathetically eager for acknowledgement in the form of worship.

"You always made me spout off nonsense when I used this thing in order to inspire faith in others, right? I'll admit that word-of-mouth marketing is effective, but even I know that advertising has long developed more effective methods."

I was procrastinating. I could admit, if only to myself, that I was nervous. The Type 95 was a devastatingly powerful tool, but using it came with a correspondingly devastating cost.

I hadn't appreciated that cost back in the early days. Back then, I only thought it was a matter of mumbling a few prayers before using the orb to destroy all my enemies. I hadn't realized that the effects of the Type 95 built up in my body like a radioactive dose until I'd spent most of a month in a sort of fugue state during the 203rd's initial training.

Once I had that scare, I had backed way off on the use of the Type 95 in order to avoid the mental contamination. The only other time that I had made such heavy use of the orb was when we were severely pressed by that madwoman Mary Sue. I could understand the desire to win, but I could never forgive her for pushing me to the extent that I had been forced to plead with Being X for help. Large sections of the last few months of the war were still blurred out of my memory.

I hadn't used the Type 95 for years. Over half a decade, now. The corruption should have had a chance to fade away. It should be fine.

"I could expand the tax break received by the church. Or increase the funding going to the church-run orphanages."

I didn't like Being X. I didn't respect Being X. But what kind of a politician would I be if I could only strike bargains with those I liked or respected? Shuffling some money around in the budget would be a small price to pay for my mental integrity.

Unfortunately, there was no response.

"Hmm, why not both? Just take your curse off of this orb and we have a deal."

Being X remained stubbornly silent. For some reason, everybody seemed to be taking a hard line with me lately. I suppose I'll have to change yet another status quo if I want to bring Being X to the negotiating table. Hasn't he been stirring up wars and putting people in misery so that they'll pray for help? If I can bring about a state of peaceful relationship between nations, in a world where nobody has to worry about starving to death, let's see just how many people still bother praying then. I'd like to see how Being X likes that.

In the mean time, I can use the Type 95 under our previous arrangement. The last time I used it was a bit worrying, but I'd had years to recover from the mental contamination. I should be fine.

I took a deep breath and reached for the trigger hooked to my waistband. A wire connected it to a specially built radio devince strapped to my back. I flicked off the safety and squeezed four times. Long, short, long, short. There was no immediate indicator that anything had happened. On the radio spectrum, a commonly used Germanian civilian band should just have experienced four bursts of static.

The Francois shouldn't be able to pick any meaning out of that. Really, they shouldn't be aware of it at all. It was the kind of thing that would usually pass unnoticed unless somebody were specifically listening for it. Somebody like the team that had infiltrated the camp down below. I could feel a smile creep across my face as a pattern of lights sprang into view below.

Optical illusion spells were such versatile things. Useful for confusing the enemy or for conveying information to a friend. In this case, a red outline had been projected around the top of the command tent, while aerial mage barracks were outlined in orange, yellow, and green. Bright enough to be visible at 3000 meters, they hopefully wouldn't be immediately noticeable to anybody hanging out at 6000. Still, no reason to dilly dally.

Bracing myself, I cut the power to the Mark Three. I was long past any fear of falling. It was simple enough to maneuver myself to face my targets with my rifle at the ready before activating the Type 95. It should be fine.

The flow of mana was different with the Type 95. With other orbs the mana had to be poked and prodded, guided and forced into the proper forms. Under the power of the Type 95 mana barely had to be nudged before it would leap to hand, ready to enact the will of God on earth.

Falling freely through the air, I was wrapped in the arms of God's embrace and armed with the might of the Lord. It was enough to make me want to burst into song.

 _"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"_

I squeezed off four shots at the command tent and two each at the first three of the aerial mage barracks. Each struck home like the hammer of God. I paused briefly in my singing to reload.

I could have tried to charge up a single shot with enough power to take out most of the camp. I wasn't sure exactly of the highest yield possible with the Type 95, but surely the power of God is limitless. The problem was that channeling such power through a flawed mortal vessel took quite a bit of time, time the Francois might use to interrupt my plans. It would also light up magical sensors clear to Parisee.

One of today's objectives was to leave at least a little ambiguity as to what had happened. Fortunately, the Type 95 was more than capable of firing off artillery grade spells as quickly as I could pull the trigger.

 _"He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored"_

I put two shots on each of the next five sleeping tents. I had worked my way through the orange targets by that point and was starting on the yellow. As I fired off the last shot and paused to reload I saw a volley of explosions consume a few of the green tents. Weiss's team had completed their first round of artillery spells. While they couldn't maintain my rate of fire I was still grateful for their efforts. We each had our own role to play in God's plan.

 _"He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword"_

Another five tents went up like firecrackers. Much to my surprise, the Francois aerial mages on the ground had yet to throw themselves into battle. I had hoped to cause confusion by taking out the command tent, but I hadn't dared to hope that it would be so effective. It was almost as if the Francois never practiced the proper response to a surprise nighttime artillery bombardment.

 _"His truth is marching on"_

I took out two more tents. As I was drawing a bead on the third, a second volley from the men on the ground blew it to pieces before I could pull the trigger. It appeared we had met in the middle, as planned. I was also starting to draw uncomfortably close to the ground below.

According to the plan I should cut off power to the Type 95. My role as a direct combatant was largely complete. Neuman's company should have finished off the airplanes stationed on the temporary landing strip, while Koenig's company should have taken down the artillery pieces attached to the 32nd corps. Both of them would then move to at least mission kill the enemy tank battalion parked in the camp. Meanwhile, Visha's company would have taken off after the first explosion to hunt enemy aerial mages out of the sky. Weiss's company was more than capable of finishing off any aerial mages down below who had survived my bombardment.

And yet... everything would go so much more smoothly if I continued forward with the Type 95. With God by my side, who could dare stand against me? Sweeping aside the enemy force would be as simple as pie. We could even press on to Francois proper in order to demonstrate God's disapproval of their behavior. Our cause was just.

I started to activate a flight spell, but hesitated. Previous experience had shown that making plans while using the Type 95 didn't tend to end well. God's might would shield me from the consequences, but I couldn't say the same for my men. Leading them into a deathtrap would be a poor way to reward their faith.

I sighed, and cut the power to the Type 95. Parisee wouldn't burn tonight. Maybe next time.

I was able to activate the Type 97 and spin up a flight spell and defensive screen without any conscious thought. Which was good, because my mind was focused on one question: Why? Why did it turn out like this? I quite the Type 95 cold turkey and didn't use it for years, but the mental corruption hadn't faded one bit. I had been about a half second away from leading the whole country on a murderous crusade. If I hadn't come up with a plan that so tightly constrained the use of the Type 95 I would already be on my way to Parisee.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a bullet that ricocheted off my defensive screen. Right, the team on overwatch. Man, I might not be drawing a salary for this any more, but it was still embarrassing to be caught lollygagging while the battle was still going on.

I darted back away from my previous position, leaving an illusory duplicate behind to take my place. I took a moment to assess the situation. I was floating a couple hundred meters from the ground. In theory an infantry soldier could take a potshot at me, but on a dark night with their camp in chaos it was incredibly unlikely. My real foe was the platoon of aerial mages that had just reached the outer edge of practical engagement range at a thousand meters above me and a hundred meters or so north of me, closing in fast. It was actually a little impressive that they had managed to wing me from that distance.

I continued to drift backwards. Now that I looked more closely, the members of the platoon actually weren't maintaining unit cohesion very well. Two of the mages had charged out in front of the other two, opening a gap between the two pairs. I added a little bit of back and forth sway to my retreat. It was a subtle thing, but my gut instinct from watching their reactions was that the two trailing mages were the more experienced flyers. I suppose the two newbies might have lost their tempers and decided to charge in while their seniors were more cautious.

Well, I was always happy to introduce new aerial mages to the battlefield. I began shaping a spell while I picked out my target. One of the two newbies was pulling ahead of the other. She-I could just make out the flicker of long hair flapping in the wind at this distance-wasn't even trying to take evasive action, instead focusing entirely on closing the gap and trying to duplicate the success of that first shot. Classic rookie mistake.

I pulled the trigger as she closed within 700 meters. The bullet shot out, carrying along with it two layers of magic. The outer layer was a magical drill bit that would punch a small hole in most forms of magical defense. The inner layer was an explosive formula primed to go off on impact. The spell took a while to set up and interacted poorly with tracking spells, but if you were confident in your aim there was nothing better for taking out a fortified target.

She may have sensed danger at the last second. Or I was a little unlucky. Or, I suppose, my aim may not have been honed to quite the usual razor's edge after years of peace. In any event, the shot punched through her shield and took her in the shoulder. At the very least, I could see that her arm had been blasted free of her body, and I'd wager the explosion did a number on her internal organs as well. Add on top of that the dangers of going into shock at this distance from the ground and I figured I could at least count her out of the rest of this battle.

The other newbie didn't falter in the face of danger, instead redoubling his efforts to close in on me. The two more experienced mages both slowed down. I fired another explosive shot their way in order to encourage their hesitation. They showed some respect for my ability by slowing down and engaging in evasive maneuvers, opening up the gap even further. I smiled and abandoned my slow retreat, instead launching myself forward at top speed. A few bullets whizzed by over my head as the change in direction threw off my target's aim, and then I was in close.

The experience of aerial melee combat is difficult to describe to somebody who's never done it. It's one of those fields where it's tough to build up experience, too. Everything happens very, very fast and a single mistake will leave you very, very dead. I have more melee kills to my name than most, and even I still feel my heart start beating fast when I close in on an enemy at a combined velocity that nears the speed of sound. It's the ultimate commitment by a pair of aerial mages to the idea that only one person is walking away from the fight.

The newbie didn't even try to disguise his intentions. He was headed straight toward me, bayonet ready like the lance of an old time mounted knight. He showed no interest in self-preservation, apparently willing to sacrifice his own life if it was the cost of taking me out. Was he mindless with panic? Coolly analytical and eager to take out an enemy leader? Simply untrained in more sophisticated melee tactics? It would forever remain a mystery.

At the very last instant I twitched to the side and slashed out with my rifle, projecting out a mage blade. Given our relative speeds his defensive shell shattered like glass. I hardly felt any resistance as his head was separated from his shoulders, eyes still widening in surprise.

The two more cautious aerial mages had split up after I took a potshot at them, perhaps intending to flank me while I focused on my charging foe. With my sudden change of direction I was now well within range of one of them, while the other was too far away to bother me for the moment. I fired an explosive spell set to explode ahead of the closer opponent's line of travel while I angled my flight to further close the distance.

He slowed down and immediately began to climb over the expanding fireball. A natural response. Humans instinctively understand the value of high ground and aerial mages know better than most that altitude is safety. Unfortunately for my opponent, a predictable reaction on the battlefield is never safe.

By anticipating his maneuver, I was able to line up nicely on his tail. As soon as he had committed to the climb I started pulling the trigger. I couldn't just toss out artillery spells like firecrackers when I wasn't using the Type 95, but I could at least put a mild piercing effect on each bullet. The first three shots sparked off of an increasingly shaky looking defensive screen, while the fourth shattered it entirely. The next three shots took him in the chest. The effect wasn't as spectacular without an explosive spell attached, but aerial mages need their internal organs just like everybody else. I went ahead and emptied my magazine just to make sure. I'd seen entirely too many near death heroics during the war.

I spun out the usual set of defensive decoys and surveyed the battlefield while I reloaded. No further aerial mages had come boiling up from the ground. Looked like our sneak attack was more successful than I had dared to hope. Either that or they were tied up with Weiss's men. Or laying low in order to hit us once we let down our guard. Well, I'd find out soon enough. In the meantime, I still had the last member of the platoon to deal with.

He had positioned himself right on the edge of engagement range. He was close enough for harassing fire, but far enough away that it would be difficult for me to close in and do any real damage. Looked like I was dealing with a veteran, all right.

I darted forward. He moved back, laying down a barrage of fire in my path. I stopped and reversed course. He did so as well, unwilling to let me completely disengage. I could feel a smile tugging at the corner of my lips as we started the familiar dance.

I could have just charged in, tanked whatever he threw at me, and gone for the quick kill. It probably would have worked. But I hadn't maintained my long and successful track record of not dying by taking risks like that. It's funny how probabilities work. A sporting event with a 3-to-1 favorite was so lopsided as not to be worth watching, but if you think about it, the odds of the underdog winning are the same as flipping a coin and seeing tails twice in a row. If I embraced that kind of risk and kept flipping coin after coin, it wouldn't take too long before something went wrong. Better to take things slow and steady and make sure of the result.

He was good. He spotted decoys as quickly as I could make them, and his flying was crisp and under control. I was a little rusty. As I'd often lamented to Visha, for all the practice we put in, we weren't actually trying to kill each other during training. Still, though, I was the better flyer. My turns were a little sharper, acceleration a little quicker, shots a little more on target. As the fight wore on, things began to tilt more and more in my favor.

Just as I was reminding myself not to take anything for granted, a sudden volley of fire rained down on him, shattering the last of his defensive screen. At the same time, Visha came swooping in from above, slashing him open from shoulder to hip. She glanced back over her shoulder to confirm the kill before continuing her flight until she stood in front of me in mid-air, throwing a textbook salute.

How embarrassing. Even as I'd been congratulating myself for getting back in the swing of things, I'd allowed my focus on the battlefield to narrow to a dangerous extent. I'd also messed around for long enough that my subordinates had felt the need to come in and clean up my assignment.

Well, no reason I couldn't adopt my usual approach in awkward situations: ignore it and hope it goes away. At least Visha wasn't the type to revel in somebody else's mistakes.

I waved down Visha's salute. Really, we weren't in the military any more. "Any trouble with the other patrols?"

"No ma'am."

I decided against correcting her terminology and instead focused my efforts on a communication spell. "Team leaders, report in."

"Team one," Weiss's voice came through loud and clear, "no problems, but I need some time to confirm phase one is complete."

So there were no active enemy mages, but Weiss hadn't been able to confirm all the kills. Considering all the explosive magic we'd been throwing around, that was reasonable.

"Team two," Neuman said, "no problems, phase one complete."

"Team three," Koenig said, "no problems, phase one complete."

Good. There was no need to worry about enemy airplanes, tanks, or artillery. The "disarm" portion of Operation Disarm and Disperse was a success.

Below us, the camp was a mess. With the commanding officers dead and large sections of the task force blown up, it was natural for a bit of panic to set in. Still, those troops down there were professional soldiers. They'd get themselves sorted out eventually. If we let them.

"Team two, team three, form up and follow team four as we move to phase two," I said. "Team one, take your time finishing up phase one. You'll be the reserve."

I received a round of acknowledgements before looking up to catch Visha's eye as I cut the communication spell. "Can you take the lead in driving off this rabble?"

"Yes ma'am!"

She was downright giddy at being let off the leash. I guess you can take the girl out of the Rhine front but you can't take the Rhine front out of the girl. It was understandable. Juicy targets like this didn't come along every day. While the enemy had us massively outnumbered, a mass of infantry troops hardly posed a threat to experienced aerial mages. The abortive Dacian invasion had shown that much. Things only grew more lopsided at night, when a mage could effectively vanish by flying fifty feet up in the air. Of course, such a small team could hardly kill an entire infantry corps, but I expected they would be more than capable of putting the enemy to flight.

"All right, I'll leave it to you. I have an errand to run," I said. "Don't stay out too late. Remember, we have that budget meeting in the morning."

"Yes, ma'am."

A noticeable drop in enthusiasm that time. Sometimes I felt a little guilty for dragging Visha into this. I'd promised her a simple scam, a secure do-nothing job. Instead, she'd been roped into the position of Deputy Chancellor and forced to deal with nearly as much paperwork as me. It was a classic bait and switch. On the other hand, I could be honest enough about myself to admit that I was too petty to let her live on easy street while I was dragged into a position of responsibility.

Anyways, today's operation was the first step towards ending all of that nonsense. After this, the Francois should be willing to show up to the bargaining table so I could finally surrender properly.

ooOoo

General Heinz Ziegler had put in time on the front lines, bunking far forward long after his rank would have permitted him to seek a rear line posting. Accordingly, when he woke up in the middle of the night and wasn't sure why, his immediate response was to sit up and grab his pistol off the nightstand. When he opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar figure in his room, he brought the pistol to bear.

Three things happened at approximately the same time. First, he realized that the unidentified intruder was seated calmly next to his bed. She was even smiling. Second, he realized that the gun felt lighter than usual. Finally, he lowered the useless pistol to his side.

The intruder, whom he belatedly recognized as Chancellor Tanya von Degurechaff, held up his pistol's missing magazine for him to see. "I like your instincts, General."

She chuckled before tossing the magazine over. He slotted it home and set the pistol back on his nightstand. Even if the nighttime intruder wasn't the Germanian head of government, picking a melee fight with an aerial mage was a fancy way of committing suicide.

And the Chancellor certainly looked the part of the aerial mage today, Ziegler noticed, as he took the time to look her over. It was funny, how you could listen to her talk about fiscal policy on the radio or see her smile and wave on the newsreels, and somehow it made you forget that she was the deadliest human being on the planet. Her current outfit certainly wasn't something she'd wear to a political rally: a pitch black flight suit redolent of gunsmoke and blood. It was probably the smell that had woken him up in the first place.

"How are you enjoying your command, General?"

There was a time when being given command of the largest Germanian field army in existence would have meant a great deal. These days, it was something of a joke. Especially when he was ordered to station himself one town over from the Francois occupation force, his twenty-five thousand men little more than a glorified speed bump to the foreign invaders.

"Does anyone enjoy being a political plaything?"

He understood the logic of it. The Francois would hesitate to march on the capital if they knew it meant shedding too much blood. Still, it was hard to be enthusiastic about a mission that showed the brass was willing to trade his men's lives in exchange for a useful headline. Ordinarily he would have been more polite in his response to the Chancellor, but she did break into his room to start the conversation.

"You'll like your new orders, then," she replied.

"Oh?"

"You'll receive word soon that the 32nd corps has been put to flight," she said. "All you have to do is take your men and round up as many of them as you can."

"The 32nd corps..."

"I'm sorry, it sounds too intimidating when I say it like that," she said. "I should say that after their artillery, aircraft, and tanks have been smashed to bits, a mob of nearly 20,000 Francois citizens is attempting to flee by running across the country."

"What about their aerial mages?"

She just smiled at him without saying a word. Ziegler's instincts were screaming at him that there were things he was better off not knowing. Still, he couldn't help his curiosity.

"How is this possible?"

"A group of concerned citizens, disgusted by the atrocities of the Francois, got their hands on some army surplus equipment and routed the invaders from Germanian soil," she said. "At least, that's what the newspapers will say."

It was clear she would say no more on the matter. He could speculate, but there were more practical matters to consider.

"Is it war, then?"

"Monsieur Mirande didn't see fit to declare war when he dispatched the 32nd, and neither will I," she said, then shrugged. "Of course, if negotiations break down, I probably won't be finishing out my term."

Ziegler's eyes widened as his shock at the frank admission made him take in the entire situation with new eyes. The flight suit that would look like a costume on any other politician, that the Chancellor wore as naturally as breathing. The rifle, with signs of recent use, slung over her shoulder with the same unconscious ease that an ordinary woman would show in carrying her purse.

General Heinz Ziegler was depressingly familiar with politicians who saw the nation's military as a tool. A tool to serve the nation's interest, sometimes, but also as a tool to deliver political glory or paper over political mistakes. Never before had he imagined, let alone witnessed, a politician willing to share the burden of the troops. Willing to fight and die on the front lines, if it came down to it.

It might not be the most practical attitude to take, but Ziegler could still feel the emotion stirring in his breast. The patriotism and camaraderie that he had felt back when he first joined the army, buried for so long under routine and cynicism, broke free once more to see the light of day.

"What can I do to help?"

"Every soldier you capture improves our bargaining position," she said. "All you need to do is carry out your mission. Leave the rest to me."

With that, she stood and turned to leave.

Chancellor Degurechaff was a petite woman. She often made light of the fact in her campaign speeches, claiming that her slight stature had made her a more difficult target for the enemy during the war. As he watched her leave the room, though, some trick of the light made her back seem broad enough to shelter the entire nation.

ooOoo


	14. Chapter 14

_AN: If you or a loved one are suffering from short timer syndrome, please seek treatment immediately at the nearest convenient happy hour._

ooOoo

As I slipped into bed I felt as though a weight had dropped off my shoulders. I'd never intended to become Chancellor in the first place. I never seriously thought I would serve out a full term. Despite that, the grind of day to day life had started to shift my perspective. Living and working in the Chancellor's residence. Meeting big shots every day. Telling those big shots what to do. Planning military contingencies. Even trying and failing to get some reasonable regulation of the stock market through the legislature. Bit by bit, it had started to feel like a real job.

Now, all of that was over. The die was cast. The Francois would never be willing to leave me in power after I'd destroyed their expeditionary corps. They wouldn't be confident of their ability to enforce their will, so they'd complain to their allies until they all agreed that I had to go. Their earlier promise of neutrality might be embarrassing, but it would hardly stop the Allied Kingdom from engaging in strong arm diplomacy.

I wasn't in any physical danger. The one area where politicians observed the Golden Rule was in the treatment of disgraced former politicians. After all, they never knew when they could be the next one brought low by scandal or war. No, it would be a nice cushy exile for me. Even better, the more diplomatic effort the Francois put into convincing their allies to abandon their principles and drive me out, the less diplomatic effort they'd have available to get international help collecting the reparations. It was a win-win.

All I had to do was get through the next couple of weeks. One last push, and it would all be over.

I slept like a baby.

Getting up the next morning wasn't pleasant. I'd kept going on shorter sleep during the war, of course, but the danger and adrenaline rush of combat had helped with that. On the other hand, I had access to much better coffee now. On balance, I thought I did a reasonable job of feigning alertness as I listened to the budget presentation.

The news itself was better than I expected. The nation's economy was continuing to recover. Although the people were upset at the ongoing occupation, everybody living outside of the affected area was continuing to show up for work as usual. In a way it was impressive how the previous government's fiscal policies had proven so much more ruinous than an invading army. Of course, as my finance minister emphasized several times, true prosperity would remain beyond our grasp unless we could evict the foreign army from our borders and avoid future reparations payments.

Well, I'd do my best. I wondered if future generations would be grateful for the helping hand I would be giving the economy by stepping down from power gracefully. Rather than relying on a fragile thing like human gratitude, it was probably better to exert myself to secure a luxurious exile. I'd like to live near a beach, at least.

I pulled myself from my daydreams as the meeting drew to a close and nudged Visha awake. She'd gotten in at an hour that would better be described as early morning than late evening. From what she had told me, a surprisingly high number of the Francois soldiers had simply elected to surrender in place. Sensible, when the alternative was to flee into a hostile countryside in the dead of night with nothing but the clothes on your back and rifle in your hand. It was welcome news, of course, but Visha had felt obligated to stand guard until the central army could arrive and take them into custody.

Visha had left Weiss behind to coordinate aerial assistance in tracking down fleeing soldiers while she returned to do her duty as Deputy Chancellor. While she never had shown much interest in budget discussions, she at least perked up a bit as we headed outside to walk to our next destination.

The Kyffhäuser League, Germania's premier veterans' organization, was officially politically neutral. That said, they didn't mind providing a venue for public figures, and I'd always found friendly audiences inside. For this outing there was no campaign on, but it never hurt to rally the citizenry. More than that, of course, I needed a good reason to appear in public early in the morning.

As an added bonus, we only had to go a little out of our way to walk down Embassy Row on the way to the meeting hall. Our police escort kept a low profile, so the members of the general public that we passed were free to come up and express their opinions. We didn't get mobbed or anything. The Germanian people were a little more reserved than that, and there weren't many of them around so early in the morning. Still, it was another chance to be seen.

I was pleasantly surprised at how unanimously everyone expressed their support. It seemed the public was still choosing to blame the Francois for their actions and hadn't yet turned on me for failing to stop them. I almost felt sorry for the fleeing Francois soldiers that tried their luck in the Germanian countryside. I doubted any of them that made it into a small town would be lucky enough to be taken into custody by the national authorities.

Really, though, it was hard to feel too bad for them. When you cross the border to invade your neighbor, you don't always get to leave the way you'd want.

The meeting hall, once we finally arrived, was packed. I would have thought that most veterans would embrace every opportunity to sleep in once they were out of the army, but I guess old habits die hard.

It felt a little funny to look around the room and realize that it might be my last time speaking in front of a big crowd. It might even be the last time I saw a big group of my fellow veterans. Not that I'd actually served with any of these men, of course. Still, there was something... I did my best not to let the irrational feeling affect my speech.

The speech, in all honesty, was nothing special. A brief mention of the success of the new currency. Praise for the mild economic boom sweeping the country. And, of course, a thundering denunciation of the Francois, complete with the prediction of vague but dire consequences should they continue with their chosen course of action. Standard stuff.

The cheer when I finished was loud enough to wake up anybody in the neighborhood who was trying to sleep in. I couldn't help but smile. Soldiers were such easy touches, in or out of uniform.

After finishing the speech, I stuck around for a while to shake hands and mingle. There was no real reason to work the crowd when I would be out of office so soon, but it was an ingrained habit after years of campaigning. By the time we left I'd dispelled the last of the odd melancholy that had gripped me up on the stage.

The die was cast. There was no more point dwelling on the pros and cons of a decision that had already been made. No, more than that, now that the decision had been made, I should focus on the positive aspects. On the burdens I was about to leave behind. I had quite the list of those to ruminate over as I walked home.

I was feeling downright cheerful by the time I made it back to my office. I couldn't help but think of my first job stocking shelves at a grocery store. I'd never particularly enjoyed the menial labor, but the two weeks after I'd given notice that I was quitting had been great fun. There's something about knowing that all the hassles of your job will soon be somebody else's problem that just brightens your whole outlook.

As I looked around I could see little reminders of all the daily annoyances I had gradually grown used to. Soon they would just be memories and someday they might even serve as fuel for misguided nostalgia.

I was almost free.

Of course, I did have some sense of responsibility. I didn't intend to skip out on Germania and leave my successor in the lurch. There were a few things I needed to set in motion to help the country stay on the right track. First up was my morning meeting with General Lergen and Dr. Schugel.

Both men were waiting for me in my conference room when I arrived. Dr. Schugel was fussing over a rosary while General Lergen was lost in thought. I set the folder holding my notes down on the table with a bit more force than necessary as I sat down. Once I was sure I had their attention, I started the meeting.

"What I'm about to tell you is one of the country's most closely held secrets," I said. "It was a fortuitous discovery, really. A side effect of structuring military spells to work on civilian orbs."

I explained the whole process that had led to the accidental discovery of what I described, for lack of a better word, as stealth casting. I could see General Lergen starting to tune me out a bit as I went into the technical details, only to snap back to attention as he understood the import of what I was saying. For his part, Dr. Schugel started frantically sketching out mathematical equations about halfway through. From what I could see, he was working through the calculations underlying the strength enhancement spell.

"Undetectable magic," General Lergen said. "Is it really possible?"

"The math works," Dr. Schugel replied. "Once the unnecessary dross is cut away, what's left behind is an elegant spell structure that radiates very little mana."

Of course Schugel would think of safety precautions as a wasted effort. The man was an arrogant believer in theory over practice even before Being X dropped by to give him an even more inflated sense of his own importance. Unfortunately, he was also the country's top expert in the design of cutting edge computation orbs.

"Undetectable is a strong word," I said. "It's more accurate to say that such casting can't be detected with current technology. Once other nations catch on to this idea I expect a new arms race to begin. I intend to get a head start."

"Dr. Schugel," I continued, "I hope you've enjoyed your vacation. Your country needs you back in the lab."

It was time to get the nation's aerial mage efforts under national control. It was a little silly to have so much war fighting potential tied up in the budget of a political party. I hoped that the country would soon have international permission for such a thing, but in the meantime it would have to start out as a secret project. My successor would ultimately have to decide what to do about it. For now General Lergen could provide adult oversight.

"Very well," Dr. Schugel replied. He seemed to be drawing himself up for some kind of pompous announcement. I spoke up before he could get going.

"Elya will help organize your project team," I said. "You will have three objectives. First, to develop the successor to the Type 97. Second, to develop a proper military orb that is capable of stealth casting. Finally, to develop an improved magical sensor. Are you up for the challenge?"

"With God by my side, what is there to worry about?"

"Right," I said. I could feel my eyebrow twitching, but otherwise I managed to control my reaction.

I took some solace in imagining the good doctor's reaction when he discovered that Weiss would be directly supervising his work. If the aerial mage corps was ever going to be established as a separate institution, it would start with an aerial mage-run bureaucracy. It was unfortunate that the legal environment meant that such a thing could only happen in an off-the-books secret project, but every journey had to start somewhere. Even if I wouldn't be around to see it through, I was happy that I was able to get the ball rolling.

Putting Weiss in charge would also have the helpful practical effect of reining in Dr. Schugel's tendency to push his test pilots to the point of destruction.

In any event, Dr. Schugel was all smiles as I escorted him out of the room. Afterwards, I returned the the desk and withdrew a map of the western half of the country from my folder. I centered it on the table so that General Lergen could use it for reference.

"The first test of stealth casting in combat occurred last night. Fifty-one friendly aerial mages were able to infiltrate deep into the enemy camp under the cover of darkness," I said. "As a result, the mages attached to the 32nd expeditionary corps have been killed, its heavy equipment destroyed, and the men put to flight."

"What?"

His surprise looked genuine. It still surprised me, sometimes, how slowly news traveled before the advent of the internet and cell phone videos.

"The central army group has taken most of them into custody, and is tracking down the remainder," I continued. "I apologize for ordering the army around directly, but time was of the essence."

I also thought it was best to keep his hands clean, just in case.

"What happens now?"

"I expect to meet the Francois at the bargaining table soon. They can hardly continue to ignore us now," I replied. "As for you, the most important thing is to disband any units that are forbidden to us under the Treaty of Triano."

"We don't-" he said, before pausing to massage the bridge of his nose. "I don't understand. You destroyed the Francois army and you want do reduce the size of our own?"

He seemed upset. I could understand. His every instinct as a military officer must be screaming at him to exploit this opening and press on into Francois territory with every available unit. To instead throw away the fruits of years of his hard work and weaken the army under his command must be a painful thought. Unfortunately, it had to be done. It was exactly that aggressive instinct that had led the Empire into a disastrous ever-widening war, after all.

"Well, if we negotiate an end to the restrictions of the treaty of Triano," I said, "it would be a bit suspicious if a whole modern army reported for duty the next day."

"What if the Francois invade?"

Considering their repeated unprovoked invasions of our territory, it was certainly possible that the Francois might agree to some kind of treaty and then invade after I'd gone into exile. I considered it unlikely, given the attitude of the international community, but it would have been irresponsible not to come up with a contingency plan.

"We should have some warning. It'll take them some time to make good the losses of aerial mages, at least," I said. "Anyways, in the event of invasion, your duty will be to surrender immediately."

"How unexpected," he said. He looked like he'd been caught wrong footed and didn't quite know what to think. Most likely he was feeling conflicted between relief at avoiding an impossible fight and anger at being denied the chance to defend his fatherland.

"The aerial mages I've trained will fade away into the civilian population," I said. "Then, if the Francois attempt to occupy the country or impose onerous terms, they can strike from the shadows."

"You intend to rely on terrorist threats?"

I could completely understand his disgust. For a nation to deliberately rely on a terrorist campaign to drive out a foreign army was essentially a direct admission that its own army wasn't up to the job.

"Aerial mages are of course illegal for the government to employ," I said. "Only a group free of government supervision would dare to engage in a campaign of targeted assassination."

Of course, my role in all of that would be limited to reading about the mess in the newspapers. I almost felt bad for the Francois, thinking about what Elya might get up to without anybody to rein her in. Well, I'd have to remember to drink a glass of wine in sympathy.

"I strongly disapprove of this course of action."

General Lergen really was a perfect fit for Operation Werewolf. This was why I had kept him out of Operation Disarm and Disperse. His love for the pure and honest display of military superiority was carved on his bones. His sheer disdain for underhanded tactics was undeniable. He was the perfect man to stand up in front of the Francois to deny any involvement with such despicable attacks... while acknowledging that the attacks were motivated by legitimate grievances, of course. The future of the country was in good hands.

"Of course, if you have a better way to keep the Francois out of the country, I'm open to suggestion," I said.

Unfortunately, the inability of our military to protect the border was a simple and undeniable fact. Until that could be remedied, the only choice was to resort to alternate methods. I gave that a moment to sink in before I continued.

"Anyways, all that should be headed off at the bargaining table," I said. "In the meantime, though, I do have a project for you."

This one was, admittedly, more of a personal project. Still, the country should benefit. It's ok to be selfish sometimes anyway, right?

"Oh?"

"After reviewing the data from the last war, it seems almost all of the fighting on the ground took place inside of 300 meters. Issuing everybody rifles that can shoot out to a kilometer is a waste," I said. "Even worse, the long rifles are a hindrance in close quarter battles. On the other hand, the submachine guns that are ideal for close in trench battles are ineffective outside of the confines of the trench."

"What do you propose?" he asked. He still seemed a bit unsettled, but less so now that the conversation was moving away from touchy issues like the current state of our military.

"If we cut down the power of the standard rifle round, it would reduce recoil. That would make automatic fire practical, if inaccurate," I said. "A rifle fitted with a selector switch could provide accurate semi-automatic fire out to 300 meters, then be used as a machine gun close in."

Back in my old world, the iconic all-purpose rifle was of course the AK-47. A communist invention, it cornered the market of revolutionary gear by virtue of being cheap, reliable, and good enough to get the job done. I remembered reading an article shortly before my death that claimed that the AK-47 and its variants had claimed the record as the weapon design that had killed the most human beings, finally taking the place of the Roman gladius that had been the previous champion.

It was silly to put too much stock in that kind of pop history, of course. Still, it had always galled me that communists could claim such an excellent weapon design as one of their accomplishments. I intended to use my position along with the advantages of time travel to induce the development of the same design by a decent capitalist nation. Perhaps I had an unfair advantage, but I'd never been particularly worried about treating commies fairly.

"I'm not sure about switching the men over to a less powerful rifle," General Lergen said. There was no doubt that he understood the mindset of his troops. No soldier would be happy to be told his rifle was being changed out for something weaker. Of course, that kind of objection could be finessed through proper marketing techniques. The important fact to establish was that more powerful rifles didn't necessarily make for a more powerful infantry unit.

"Within each company we can issue a long range rifle to a few snipers," I said. "but the majority of the men should be given a tool suited to the task we actually ask them to perform."

"You're set on this?"

"I insist that we at least develop an assault rifle and test its usefulness," I said.

Fortunately for my plan, the Imperial attitude of strict meritocracy was alive and well in the Republic of Germania. Once the army had a chance to test the proposed weapon, former Chancellor's pet project or not, they'd give it a fair shake.

"Assault rifle? At least the name is catchy," he said.

Whoops. It had been a while since I'd used anachronistic jargon like that. Well, I guess that comes with the territory when you're trying to get people to build a rifle from the future. It shouldn't be a big deal.

"Remember, an effective range of no more than 300 meters, and a useful automatic fire mode," I said. "Also, in comparing designs, put an emphasis on reliability."

"We always do," he replied, looking a little offended.

"An extreme emphasis. Toss it in a pond the night before the test. Use the magazine to hammer in nails. Soak it in mud and blood," I said. "The Mondragón issued to aerial mages is a wonderful weapon, but I was barely able to keep it functioning while I was stationed on the front lines. And I could use magic. A rifle is no good to anybody if it won't shoot."

Legendary reliability had been a major selling point for the AK-47. To steal its thunder, our version would have to match up. While Dr. Schugel was an extreme example, his behavior was well within the Germanian engineering tradition that put more emphasis on cutting edge technology and bells and whistles than things like durability and reliability. The General Staff knew as well as I did what kind of conditions existed at the front, though. A little emphasis now should be enough to remind them to keep the engineers focused on the important things.

"Very well," he said.

I smiled. It felt good to get one over on the communists on my way out the door, even if they'd never realize it. Now all I had to do was play my part on the international stage before I could retire for some well deserved rest and relaxation.

ooOoo

News really did travel slowly these days. I waited all day for a foreign ambassador to confront me over the missing Francois army corps, but it never happened. I had instructed Weiss to try to prevent the Francois soldiers from crossing the border in order to keep word from getting out, but I hadn't expected him to be so successful. I thought some would at least make it to Lothiern. Maybe I'd underestimated how hard it was to cover fifty kilometers in the dark on foot.

Finally, in the evening, I gave a speech on the radio announcing the glorious uprising by the Germanian people that had sent the foreign invaders fleeing for their lives. Even then, the expected diplomatic communication failed to materialize. Perhaps they thought I was bluffing, or that I was trying to talk up a revolution that hadn't yet happened. Honestly, I couldn't be bothered to try and figure out what they were thinking. I had to catch up on my beauty rest.

I was woken up the next morning by a knock on the bedroom door. I took a moment to rub the sleep out of my eyes before I responded.

"Yes?"

"Madame Chancellor," the voice belonged to one of the messenger boys attached to the Chancellor's Residence, though his name escaped me for the moment, "the Americans and the Allied Kingdom ambassador want to see you at your earliest convenience."

Back in the army, that meant you went running to see your superior officer as soon as possible. I wasn't in the army any longer, though, and they certainly weren't my superior officers. I ran my fingers through my hair to get some of the tangles out and glanced at the clock. Seven in the morning. If they'd waited this long to seek me out, they could wait a little longer.

"Take them to wait outside my office," I instructed. "I'll be there at eight."

"Yes ma'am."

I indulged myself in an extended stretch and yawn, followed by a chuckle. Petty power games were a lot more fun when you had the upper hand, however temporary. It was probably just as well that I'd be out of office before I could let that kind of thing go to my head.

After a long shower and a hearty breakfast, I was waiting in my office when the two ambassadors were escorted in at eight o'clock on the dot. The two men engaged in a brief staring contest before Mr. Johnston backed down and let Mr. Lloyd have the first word.

"It's been a rather tumultuous night," Mr. Lloyd said. His tone was one I imagined he usually reserved for ordering a maid whipped after she'd chipped the fine china.

"I suppose," I said, content to let the two of them take the lead for now.

"We both got the Francois talking our ears off," Mr. Johnston complained. "They're saying all sorts of crazy things."

I could imagine. Even I didn't know as much as I would like about the current state of the affairs, having only received Visha's report and a brief telegram from General Ziegler. And that was in territory held by my men after a military operation that I had personally planned and led. The Francois were stuck building speculation on top of speculation before panicking at the results. They must be getting in the ear of any ally who would listen.

Of course, while I could understand Mr. Johnston's situation in the abstract, that didn't mean that I felt any sympathy for him in particular.

"I hope you shared with them that lovely saying," I said, "about the bull and the horns."

He had the grace to look a bit embarrassed, at least. Really, if you're going to puff yourself up as a tough guy talking about realpolitik in a tough world, don't turn around and come looking to me for a sympathetic ear.

After a moment, Mr. Lloyd picked up the thread of the conversation.

"What happened at Duisbusch, Chancellor?"

Obviously, I couldn't tell the truth. I also didn't want to commit to any specific lie.

"Is it so hard to figure out? An occupying force that behaves so atrociously naturally inspires rebellion," I said, shrugging.

From a certain point of view, what I was saying was even the truth. Not that my conversation partners would appreciate that kind of hair-splitting. Far more important was that it was at least somewhat plausible. Less so when they discovered that every aerial mage attached to the Francois corps was dead, but that wouldn't be confirmed for a while. Even then, it was more likely they'd been killed in their sleep by angry citizens rather than the current Germanian army somehow having cornered them without allowing any to escape.

The bottom line was that it was fine if they suspected I was lying. I didn't need their trust, not about that. I just needed to avoid being branded something like a "proven criminal" in a way that would rip away the halo of a former national leader and replace my vacation in exile with a jail cell.

"The Francois are blaming you," Mr. Lloyd began, before I cut him off.

"The Francois blamed the Empire for fighting back after their last invasion," I said, slapping the table in emphasis. "The only way I could make Mr. Mirande happy is if I were to go to the Ruhr and hold down the girls myself so his soldiers can have their fun."

That brought a touch of shock to the face of the normally imperturbable Mr. Lloyd. In turn, I couldn't help feeling annoyed. I may have looked delicate, but I was after all in the army for eight years. I was no stranger to coarse language. I did my best to channel my annoyance to a productive purpose.

"You were so studiously neutral while the Francois ran wild," I said, tapping my finger to my chin. "Now that the victims have fought back I sense a certain partiality."

Obviously, the Allied Kingdom's statement of neutrality hadn't been an iron-clad commitment. Just as obviously, they could complain that I hadn't been acting in good faith if I'd somehow built up the ability to sweep the Francois from the country so easily. Even so, it would be embarrassing to have to go back on their word so soon after they'd given it. They would, of course, in a heartbeat, if it was in their interests. But they wouldn't be happy about it, and they certainly wouldn't be backing the Francois to the hilt in the ensuing negotiations.

"We don't want to see the war start up all over again," Mr. Lloyd said, showing admirable aplomb. It took a professional diplomat to continue to pretend to be an honest broker in this kind of situation.

"Neither do I! I've been trying to end things peacefully for months," I complained. "Bring the Francois to the table so we all can discuss the situation like adults and we can have peace in our time!"

This was another form of battlefield preparation.

The Francois should naturally want the upcoming discussion to be as narrow as possible. They should want to focus on their claim that I had violated the Treaty of Triano, which I had. They should want to focus on their claim that I had attacked their soldiers, which I had. Other than those two things, the only thing they should want to talk about is what they're entitled to under the treaty. From their point of view, the ideal situation would be to dictate terms to us based on their own military strength. As that was no longer practical, they would like to sit at the negotiating table and borrow the military power of their allies to browbeat us into compliance.

Of course, the Allied Kingdom and the Unified States didn't pay and equip their armies just for the benefit of the Francois. If their names were going to be thrown around, they'd want to have a say in how everything was decided.

That suited me just fine. I wanted the discussion to be wide open. I wanted to talk about justice, and natural rights, and the future of Europe. I also wanted as many countries involved as possible, all worried about their own interests. Ideally, the complaints of the Francois would get lost in the shuffle. Of course, such an ideal scenario was unlikely to come about. Still, the more interests wound up being pursued the less likely it was that the Francois would end up having things all their own way.

Since the three of us all wanted the same thing, it only took another hour or so before we were able to come to an agreement. In one week, the representatives of the Allied Kingdom, Unified States, Francois Republic, the Legadonia Entente, and the Republic of Germania would gather together for the first time since the end of the Great War. My international swan song was officially scheduled to take place at the second conference of Londinium.

ooOoo


	15. Chapter 15

_AN: Quick reminder re: the treaty. There are two key differences from Versailles: (1) no ongoing occupation of German territory by French/Belgian equivalents, and (2) no cheating. Both of these spring from the same place: while post-WWI Germany is "the Kaiserreich minus some bits at the edges," post-Great War Germania is has lost half the territory of the Empire. This means that (1) the subsidiary security focus was on keeping the Empire from getting back together again, and (2) where the German military could dust itself off and start getting ready for round two, the Germanian military establishment is shell-shocked-if they couldn't win with the whole Empire behind them, what's the point of trying to cheat the treaty now?_

ooOoo

For a wonder, nothing went horribly wrong in the week before the meeting. I was free to live the shut in lifestyle, and I took advantage of the opportunity to cram as much useful information as possible into my head so I could try to wring out a better deal. It wasn't the most exciting week of my life, but it had to be done. In theory I could leave that kind of thing up to the ambassador on site, but I'd never met our man in Londinium. He was a holdover from the previous administration, and in all honesty nothing I'd seen in my new life had given me much confidence in the diplomatic adroitness of the Germanian upper crust.

We set out the day before the meeting. I brought Visha and General Zettour along with me. They could prove helpful during the meeting itself and, in all likelihood, one of them was going to end up running the country afterwards, so it was best to get them ready to hit the ground running. Germania was, of course, not allowed to own airplanes, so we made the journey by way of a commandeered ferry. The accommodations were comfortable enough, but it was a little annoying that the trip would start in the early morning and continue into the evening.

Fortunately, I had access to a shortcut.

I waited until we were in the North Sea proper, out of sight of land, before heading to the rear deck. I stood there for a moment, looking out at the waves. There was no real reason to hesitate. Just the queasy feeling of unease tickling away at my stomach.

My plans were more than a little provocative. Also, when you got right down to it, my only real card to play in this negotiation was the sympathy generated by the harsh peace treaty and the Francois occupation. There was a part of me that wanted to keep my head down and lay low.

This was no time to be ruled by emotion, though. This was a time to embrace rational thinking in order to achieve my desired result. Basic signaling theory said that the more the Francois wanted me gone, the more they'd be willing to give up in order to get rid of me. And the more firmly I seemed to be cemented in place, the more they would expect to have to give up in order to achieve their aim. I could hardly expect them to make serious concessions if it looked like I already had one foot out the door. It was practically my duty to the country to show as much confidence as possible for the next few days.

Once I'd firmed my resolve, the take off was simple. I had thought it would be tricky. I hadn't had to adapt to a new military grade orb in a long time, and I'd never had a chance to use a foreign orb. In the end, though, a flight spell was a flight spell. I was zipping up towards cruising altitude almost as soon as I put my mind to the task.

The feeling of flight was a little unusual without my usual flight suit. Considering the situation, it was obviously a bad idea to wear a military issued uniform. Instead I was dressed in a white blouse and khakis, topped off with a heavy leather jacket. My hair was tucked under a leather cap to keep it out of my eyes. All in all, it would have led to some kind of fashion disaster if I had to dogfight anybody, but for a leisurely cruise it was all right. I'd left my rifle at home, of course, and the lack of weight was throwing me off as much as everything else. I would have been more comfortable if I could put up a full wind screen, but I'd want more time with the orb before I started getting fancy with it.

It was exceedingly rare for anybody to get a chance to use a foreign orb, really. The computation orb was a delicate piece of clockwork designed to channel mana in order to carry out its user's will. If the user was interrupted halfway through a spell by, for example, catastrophic blood loss caused by enemy fire, that mana was left to run wild without direction. No aerial mage would be courteous enough to use his last breath to activate the safety measures needed to preserve the orb for enemy use. If anything, most of those war maniacs would direct their efforts in the other direction. Thus, the tried and true method of scavenging the battlefield to get a look at your enemy's technology, when applied to aerial mages, usually turned up a pretty shell wrapped around half-molten clockwork pieces.

Killing aerial mages in their sleep got around that problem. Unfortunately, artillery spells were a little rough on clockwork. Accordingly, the result of our efforts in Duisbuch, history's single greatest and most one sided slaughter of aerial mages to date, was the unprecedented harvest of three mostly-functional computation orbs. Only one of them was safe for flight.

As I grew more familiar with the orb, I started to appreciate its qualities more and more. It was definitely a late or even post war model. The performance was head and shoulders above the single core orb I had been issued back during flight school. The Francois had been working hard to close the gap in computation orb technology. Of course, they were still well behind the standard set by the Type 97, but it wasn't their fault Being X was so capricious with his "miracles."

I was also able to appreciate the flight for its own sake as I got more comfortable with the orb. Flying over the sea is miserable in bad weather. On the other hand, on a sunny day like the one I was enjoying, it was downright picturesque. I set a leisurely pace. I figured there was every chance that this could be the last time I flew under my own power, so I might as well enjoy it.

I was up high enough to see the coast of Francois off to my left and Albion to my right as I approached the Channel. Truly a unique sight. I took a deep breath, tasting just a hint of the sea, even so far up. It was a pity aerial mages had so few chances to fly for recreation.

I had passed a few kilometers beyond what I thought was Albion's detection range before I was hailed. Perhaps they were trying to disguise the actual limits of their sensor equipment.

"Londinium control to unidentified mage. Identify yourself immediately. I repeat, identify yourself immediately."

"I am Chancellor Tanya von Degurechaff," I said, floating to a halt. I made sure to smile. That sort of thing comes through in your tone of voice. "I know you weren't expecting me until later, but I thought arriving a little early would be all right."

"Please stand by."

Radio operators were usually pretty stoic. I counted the bit of unease coming over the air as a point in favor of things going as planned. Also a good sign was the lack of anti-aircraft fire.

"Londinium control to Chancellor Degurechaff. Please maintain your position and wait for your escort."

"Chancellor Degurechaff, roger."

I took some pleasure in finally dodging that Pixie call sign, at least for the moment.

I didn't have to wait too long for my escort to make its appearance. I could sense them before I could see them. Twelve mana signatures. It seemed a little excessive, but I suppose they figured it was better safe than sorry. It wasn't until they were almost within shouting distance that I realized that I recognized one of the mana signatures.

I didn't make a habit of memorizing enemy signatures. There was no point, really, at the rate that we went through them. It was like trying to memorize somebody's name when you knew you were never going to see them again.

The one exception was the leader of the Allied Kingdom's mages in Africa. After flying missions against him and his battalions for so long, I couldn't help but remember the mana signature of the one we'd nicknamed Bulldog. As the escort company approached, I saw that he had taken point.

"What an honor," I said, as soon as he was close enough for conversation to be possible. "Do you know how much time I spent trying to figure out how to get this close to you?"

"Not nearly as much time as I spent praying you would stay far away, I reckon," he replied.

Relative distance had been our primary point of contention for years. I couldn't count how many times we spent all day maneuvering for position, never drawing close enough to exchange meaningful fire. It was a beautiful way to spend a war.

I laughed, lost in the happy memories. "I have to say, it was fun to face off against a commander with the same understanding of war."

After the disaster of the armistice and the Francois army's escape to Africa, I was in a bit of a funk. Any fool could see that the Empire would have trouble supporting an extended campaign outside of its home continent. When the Allied Kingdom joined the war, our logistics situation went from precarious to outright disastrous. We would have been better served to hunker down on the defense, preferably back in Europe, instead of pursuing a fool's errand abroad.

Nobody was consulting me on the broader conduct of the war by that point, though. Especially after I'd tried to launch an attack on my own authority after that damned armistice was signed but before it officially went in to effect. The only thing left for me to do was to follow orders and face off against the enemy in front of me.

Unfortunately, I was faced with a series of idiots at first. The 203rd, up against an incompetent enemy, was too well trained to do anything but tear them apart. I couldn't have called them off if I wanted to. If I'd forcibly made them stop, they would have complained, and then I would have been in real hot water with the higher ups. I could only resign myself to suffering the curse of leading a bunch of war maniacs.

When Bulldog finally took over and whipped the enemy mages into shape, it was a relief. Finally, we were free from the constant push to advance ever further from our supply stockpiles. Once we faced an enemy with no obvious weaknesses, the 203rd was happy to follow my lead and probe the opposing formation from afar. We still got in the occasional potshot on the enemy below, so my immediate superior couldn't complain that I wasn't doing my job, but with no close in fighting against enemy mages there was no real risk of injury.

It wasn't quite a full on sitzkrieg, but it was the best a mere Major like myself could ever hope to orchestrate. If not for the weather, it would have been a wonderful vacation.

He chuckled, though it sounded a little strained. "A bit more fun for you than me, I think."

Everybody had their own perspective on the good old days. For me, the change from the Rhine front was like a vacation. For him, flying from the rain and fog of England into the harsh sun of Africa must have been quite a shock. Well worth it, though, I was sure, for the command experience.

He turned and began leading the flight in towards Londinium. I fell in beside him, with the rest of the company filling out a v-shape behind us. The most basic of formations, it worked for geese and it worked well enough for aerial mages. I did notice something a bit off as I glanced over at Bulldog's uniform.

"Are those lieutenant's pips?"

He nodded, before looking over and seeing the question written on my face. "I was only ever in charge with a field promotion. High command decided that flying a holding pattern weren't extraordinary enough to keep the rank."

Once more, I was given a reason to appreciate the strict meritocratic policy of the Empire. When the Empire discovered a talented aerial mage, they did everything possible to nurture their career. In Albion, obviously, politics played a large role. Not that the Empire was free of cliques and personality clashes, but things never would have gotten so out of hand as to bury a talent like Bulldog.

"Typical," I said, shaking my head. "Ah, I'll have to remember, now, Weiss owes me a bottle of wine."

It was his turn to look at me with confusion.

"He thought they'd have you running the aerial mage program by now," I continued, "but I told him that Albion's army always does the intelligent thing... after exhausting every alternative."

"Well, I couldn't say that," he said, the accompanying chuckle sounding much more natural than before, "though I might've heard somebody say something similar."

We exchanged a bit more small talk on the way down, but most of my attention was on the city growing more and more visible below us. Londinium was quite the sight. It sprawled out far larger than Berun, and was at least as densely packed with people and activity. The smog permeating the city was unpleasant to fly into, but the industrial production represented by all of the active smokestacks was quite impressive. There was a reason that the Empire, whose army had marched where it pleased throughout Europe, had never been able to seriously threaten Albion's soil.

We landed outside of a building that looked important. That should be where my ambassador was engaged in the pre-meeting meeting with representatives of every party to hash out the niggling little details that accompany a major diplomatic summit. A small crowd had gathered around us, held back by the heavy police presence. The bright flashes of cameras going off indicated the presence of more than a few journalists in the crowd.

I ignored the commotion and removed my cap, stowing it in my pocket. I tried for a moment to straighten my hair before giving it up as a bad job. Finally, I plucked the captured computation orb from its mount on my jacket and tossed it over to Bulldog with a smile.

"Here, a souvenir."

With that, I turned and headed for the front door. The police blocking the way visibly sized me up as I approached. I reflexively drew on a bit of magic and spun out a reflex booster. I mean, I wasn't going to thrash them and keep going if they tried to stop me, not with a whole company of aerial mages right there, but I wanted to be ready in case somebody did something foolish. Under the influence of the reflex enhancement, I could actually see the moment the cop in charge decided that stopping me was more trouble than it was worth. The police line parted and I walked inside without breaking stride.

Once inside, I located the meeting room through the simple expedient of heading towards the highest concentration of guards. None of them wanted any part of the diplomatic incident of physically keeping me from my ambassador, so I was able to make my way to the meeting room more smoothly than I'd expected.

I stepped inside to find a preview of tomorrow's arrangements. Four men, representing the Unified States, Allied Kingdom, Legadonia Entente, and Republic of Francois, sat on one side of the table. One man, representing the Republic of Germania, sat on the other. It seemed there had been some discussion going on, but they all fell silent and turned to look when I threw open the doors and strode into the room.

I stopped at the head of the table, spreading my arms wide.

"Gentlemen! Thank you all for coming. If you're finished with the preliminaries," I said, catching my ambassador's eye and receiving a nod in return, "I have a few matters to bring to your attention before the negotiations begin tomorrow."

The Francois ambassador sprang to his feet. "You flew here with a computation orb! How can you speak to us of peaceful negotiations?"

"We recently happened to come into the possession of a military grade computation orb. A Breguet Modèle D, to be precise," I said. "I rushed here to return it as soon as possible, in compliance with the Treaty of Triano. Really, your government should be more careful about leaving such things lying around."

He had nothing to say to that. It seemed unlikely that he was conceding the point. Judging by his white knuckled grip on the table in front of him, he was probably too furious to speak. I cleared my throat and waited a beat to be sure that I had everybody's attention before I continued.

"It's simple enough to knock a man to the ground. Plant your boot on his neck and stick a rifle in his face, and you can even keep him there without much trouble," I said. "But eventually, you have to make a decision. Do you pull the trigger, or do you let him up?"

Out of all the logical fallacies, my favorite is the excluded middle. If you can convince your audience that they only have two choices, and one of the choices is terrible, how can they do anything but take the remaining choice? Of course, a little thought would quickly reveal the holes in the argument. Even taking my analogy on its own terms, an incapacitated man can be tied up in restraints or tossed into prison rather than being set free or shot on the spot. Still, I felt obligated to try to frame the argument in a way that would favor Germania.

"You went to war to dismantle the Empire. Congratulations! The Empire has been destroyed," I continued, pantomiming a moment of applause. "What remains is Germania. How long shall we be punished for having dared to reach beyond our grasp?"

I took a moment to stare down each of the ambassadors in turn. Honestly, their initial justifications for the war were pretty weak. Not that it mattered in the face of overwhelming strength, but to the extent that they wanted Germanians to comply willingly rather than merely capitulating in the face of force, they really ought to restrain themselves a bit. I was pleased to see that the Legadonian ambassador looked a bit shamefaced.

"It was also your wish that we replace the Emperor and instead vote for our leaders, which has led to the current troubles," I said. "After all, who will vote in favor of their own humiliation and impoverishment?"

I also thought it was fair to remind them that any agreement would have to take into account the wishes of the Germanian people. And that that obstacle had been created by their own hand. It was also a classic negotiation tactic to act as though you were restrained by somebody who wasn't at the table. I'd love to take any deal that would guarantee me a cushy exile, but the people couldn't possibly accept terms that were too onerous... even a car salesman knew to pretend to fight with his manager for the benefit of the customer.

Really, I was saving them trouble in the long run. If they were too harsh on Germania, there was a genuine risk that they could drive the voters into the arms of some maniac who would kick off another world war.

"Will Germania be governed as a colony for the benefit of a foreign master?" I continued. "Or will it become a peaceful republic, standing side by side with our European brethren? The time has come to make a choice. I'll await your decision."

I gestured to my ambassador and turned to leave. He fell in beside me. We were most of the way to the door before the Francois ambassador regained his voice.

"You managed to talk for a long time without mentioning the money you owe."

I paused. Turning around, I saw he was pointing an accusatory finger in my direction. I could feel a smile creeping across my face. By this point, the adrenaline rush that comes with facing an enemy who wanted me dead was an old friend.

"If you want that money so badly," I said, "come and take it."

He sat down.

ooOoo

Our ambassador seemed a bit nervous as we walked out of the meeting, but he pulled himself together enough to at least present a composed facade once he saw the crowd waiting for us outside. A car was waiting to take us back to the embassy. During the drive I did my best to reassure him that everything was going to plan. He probably would have been less reassured if he had realized that the plan was simply to hope that the other parties discussed matters among themselves and came to a decision that favored us.

We arrived back at the embassy in time for dinner. The meal was a taste of home: some kind of sour meat dish, steamed within an inch of its life. I couldn't even complain. It wasn't like a local chef would have done much better. I really needed to contrive to "discover" miso soup at some point. I hoped I would have time to figure out a way to do it once I was safely exiled.

After dinner came the first bit of good news for the day with the announcement that we had a discreet visitor. At any big meeting like this at least as much got hashed out in side discussions as it did in the official talks. It was a good sign that we were being included in those side discussions. I had a spring in my step as I led Mr. Lloyd to a meeting room where a tea set was waiting, complete with a steaming kettle of water.

He took a moment to make two cups of tea. I accepted the one he offered to me and took a sip out of courtesy, though I didn't much care for the taste. He took a moment savoring the scent wafting out of his own cup before taking a drink. Finally, he set the cup down and looked me in the eye.

"I understand that you feel the provisions of the Treaty of Triano are unnecessarily restrictive," he said.

Anybody who paid any attention at all to my public positions knew that much. Still, things were starting on a positive note. I decided to focus on our common interests.

"In that they leave the heart of Europe wide open to Russite conquest, yes."

"You're still focused on the Russy Federation?"

Considering the recent friction between us and the Francois, I could understand his surprise. It still caught me off guard, sometimes, how naive everybody was to the threat posed by a communist regime in charge of one of the world's largest nations.

"The Francois want to rob us blind and perhaps seize some land," I said. "The Rus would slaughter everybody who stood in the way of their communist utopia."

"Do you think they could?"

The Rus weren't exactly covering themselves in glory out in the far east. On the other hand, they had a deep, deep well of people and resources that they had yet to tap into. For the moment, political stability seemed more important to them than military capacity, but that could change at any time.

"Communism is an evil ideology. It's incompatible with human nature, and in the long run it's doomed to failure," I said. "In the short run, they can build an awful lot of guns, tanks and planes."

"Be that as it may," Mr. Lloyd said, "the Allied Kingdom has its own security concerns."

"Naturally," I replied.

"If you could agree to certain restrictions regarding Germania's navy," he said, "it would greatly assuage our concerns regarding any other form of military build up."

Well, it was only natural that the highest priority of the Allied Kingdom would be to keep our navy in check. It was somewhat laughable that they were concerned about our navy, though. The entire might of the Empire had been funneled into naval production for decades before the war, and the Allied Kingdom had handled the resulting fleet easily enough. Germania's current navy wasn't much more than a glorified coast guard, and it was already pushing the limits of what we could afford.

If he was willing to give literally anything of value in exchange for limits on our fleet, I would be criminally negligent not to take it. I did my best to keep a neutral expression in place as I tried to feel out his position.

"What sort of restrictions?"

"To keep it to one third of the size of our fleet, in each class of ship," he said. "By weight, overall, so there wouldn't be too much fiddling about."

One third of a gigantic fleet was still a large fleet. Far beyond our ability to finance on a long term basis, and probably beyond our ability to build in the first place. It was the same as no limit at all. Still, I figured I ought to at least haggle a little bit.

"So, what," I complained, "our fleet is to replicate yours in miniature?"

"The Admiralty feels that would be the easiest to keep track of," he replied.

Ah. That made sense. If Germania were to tear up the treaty entirely and spend all of its energy building submarines, the resulting fleet would be disproportionately annoying for the Allied Kingdom to deal with. A downsized version of their own fleet would be relatively easy to mop up. The real value to them wasn't the limit on the overall size of the fleet, but rather its composition. Pretty sneaky.

Of course, what I knew that they didn't was that in any future war with the Allied Kingdom, Germania was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent guaranteed to lose. That being the case, there was no point in building a fleet that could annoy Albion in time of war. If anything, I'd prefer that Germania be left with a fleet that obviously had no chance at all against the Royal Navy. I wanted a nice, quiet exile. The less temptation left to my successor to start a foolish war, the better.

"You're mostly concerned about battleships and u-boats, right?" I said. "And perhaps heavy cruisers?"

I wasn't particularly knowledgeable about naval operations. I did know from my military history studies at the War College that the battleship race had been a major factor souring the relationship between the Empire and the Allied Kingdom around the time of my rebirth. The problem represented by submarines was obvious. Also, I figured that a cruiser with enough guns on it could start to become a battleship-level threat.

"I suppose that's about right," he said.

"How about letting us take tonnage out of those categories," I asked, "and shift it into others?"

If Germania wanted to threaten the Allied Kingdom with a battleship, they'd get about as much value by taking the equivalent amount of steel and tossing it into the sea. More, even, since they wouldn't have to pay to sail it from place to place or lose the lives of its citizens along with the steel at the bottom of the sea. I was able to draw this conclusion based on my history classes from my previous life, but it was honestly an easy conclusion to draw just by comparing our nations' fleet strengths.

Submarines, on the other hand, mostly seemed to be of strategic use in drawing the Unified States into European wars.

"If you build fewer u-boats, cruisers, and battleships," he asked, "what would you be building instead?"

"I've heard good things about your floating landing strips," I replied.

"You want to build aircraft carriers?"

"And destroyers," I said. "Honestly, for me, the main use for a fleet is to help control the sky."

I didn't actually intend to build the navy up at all. As a matter of principle, though, what Germania did build should be suitable for the coming era of warfare. Well, that wouldn't be my problem, anyways, but I at least wanted to leave a viable path open to my successor.

"A unique perspective," he said. Really, it was amazing how many ways somebody could call you an idiot to your face without actually saying the word.

"I'd also be willing to go down to a flat thirty percent ratio in exchange for the flexibility."

"I'll have to run it up the chain," he said, "but I suspect we can reach an agreement."

"Wonderful."

That seemed to be the only substantive matter he wanted to discuss. I had hoped we could talk about the specifics of my exile, but he never brought it up. More than likely they were still hashing it out among themselves. I'd bet the Francois were pushing to see me sent to Antarctica or some similarly dire location. Well, I could only hope that they would eventually settle on something sensible.

ooOoo

Our next visitor was less congenial, but I did my best to give him a pleasant welcome. Mr. Johnston was after all speaking for the Unified States of America. Besides its inherent military power, the Unified States had also loaned a lot of money to the other participants in the Great War. As a nation, it had a tremendous amount of influence, even if it didn't always seem inclined to take advantage of the opportunity to affect events in Europe.

"Let's get right to it," he said, ignoring the refreshments. "You got a money problem."

"Oh?" I asked. I had thought we had left the worst of our currency troubles behind.

"The Unified States loaned an awful lot of money to the frogs and limeys," he said. "If they don't get any reparations payments, they aren't gonna pay us back."

Right. That. The Unified States hadn't taken much of a cut from the reparations payments in the final Treaty of Triano, but they were still indirectly exposed to risk from our non-payment.

"Loans... you mean the money you spent to purchase a weapon to use to strike at the Empire?"

"Funny, when they other fellas say it," he said, "they call it a contribution to a common cause."

Either way, I thought his attitude was a little surprising. Money was a weapon like any other. For the most part I thought it was understood that when you used cash to help fight a war, it was just as thoroughly used up as any other expended ammunition.

"You expect to be paid back?"

"Why else would anybody ever extend a loan?"

And I thought I was cold blooded. The Unified States had loaned that money to its allies, who had largely used it to purchase weapons from the Unified States, before using those weapons against the enemies of the Unified States. To try and collect on the loans after all that was really something else.

I'd had some idle thoughts about how war could be a profitable business, but I was clearly a few steps behind the Americans.

"Everyone always describes Americans as uncultured rubes," I said, ruefully, "yet you seem to come out ahead in every bargain."

"Just lucky, I guess," he replied, shrugging. "Now, look, we can move some money around, make things easier for everybody. But you're going to have to pitch in. I figured I should cut out the middleman and talk to you directly, instead of hoping you and the Francois can make nice."

I could appreciate the honesty, if nothing else. "How much should the Germanian government be prepared to chip in, exactly?"

The terms he outlined involved a substantial lump sum. However, it was coupled with rather favorable payment terms over a rather long period of time. Overall we'd be on the hook for roughly one tenth of our current reparations obligations on a yearly basis. Still a burden, but a manageable one. Of course, if we defaulted it wouldn't be the Francois coming to collect, but the Americans.

It was an attractive offer, but I felt like it wasn't quite following through on my campaign promises. After all, I had sought to end reparations payments altogether. Reducing them to a manageable level didn't have the same ring to it.

On the other hand, it wasn't like I had much of a choice. This felt like a take it or leave it kind of offer. Well, maybe there was a little wiggle room.

"Is your army still in the process of demobilizing?" I asked.

"Mostly done," he said, after a moment's thought. "I guess there's a few bits still winding down. Why?"

"If you were willing to alter our transaction into a sale of surplus tanks and artillery," I said, "you could tack another five or ten percent onto that monthly payment."

He still seemed confused by the idea.

"I gotta be honest, most of our heavy gear in storage is basically scrap at this point," he said. "It's out of date and I don't know if any of it is even being maintained."

"Anything to put between Parisee and Berun is welcome," I said. "More to the point, if you want the average voter to support actually paying you back, much better to have sold us weapons in a time of need than to have extorted promises in a time of weakness."

Of course, I could see the necessity of acceding to any kind of demand the Unified States chose to make. That wouldn't really matter, though, if the voters remained vehemently against the payments. They'd find some maniac to vote for who would refuse to pay and start this crisis all over again. In the worst case scenario somebody might even try to pull me out of exile in order to calm things down. It was better to head all of that off while I had the chance.

"So, what, we magnanimously forgive most of the war debts out of the goodness of our hearts, and then coincidentally stumble into a profitable sale? I like the way you think," he said, chuckling. "I'm gonna have to keep an eye on you."

What an odd thing to say. Eh, let the Americans set as much surveillance as they liked on wherever they wound up sending me. It wasn't as if I intended to escape from my well deserved retirement in the first place.

"You're too kind."

ooOoo

The Francois never dropped by to visit. A bit disappointing, but not a surprise. With the Unified States setting the tone on financial matters, the only issue of special interest to the Francois would be my exile. No doubt they'd prefer to announce their demand in public, rather than hash things out in private. Unfortunate, but I didn't mind subjecting myself to a little public humiliation if it would finally secure my easy life out of danger.

The four of us, Zettour, Visha, the ambassador, and me, headed for the meeting together the next morning. We chatted for a little while about the upcoming negotiations, but there really wasn't that much to say. As a country, we couldn't exercise much influence over the course of events. We could speculate as to what was to come, but that was about it.

I was greeted by a wave of camera flashes as I stepped out of the car. I ignored the surrounding reporters and led our little entourage inside. I had at least changed out of my flight clothes into my usual dress and jacket combination, which should be a bit more photogenic. It was funny. At first I had adopted the look because I only owned the one jacket and a pair of similar white dresses provided by the orphanage. I had stuck with it as my finances improved for the sake of building a brand image, and by now the average Germanian probably wouldn't recognize me if I wore anything else. I had been leery of wearing a dress at first, but it honestly wasn't that different from walking around in a yukata.

I put fashion concerns out of my mind as we followed the guards deeper into the building. Soon they led us into the same meeting room from the previous day, where I was presented with two familiar people and two familiar faces. The Unified States was represented again by Mr. Johnston, as crossing the Atlantic for a meeting like this was impractical for a sitting president. The Francois were also represented by an ambassador. Mr. Mirande's government had collapsed shortly after his expeditionary force; nobody was clear exactly who would be taking over, but in the mean time the ambassador could continue to represent his country. The Legadonian ambassador had been replaced by a member of their governing Council of Ten, and the Prime Minister of the Allied Kingdom was hosting the meeting.

"Madame Chancellor, welcome," the Prime Minister said, perfectly polite. Everything I had heard about the man suggested that he was the consummate politician.

We shook hands in greeting, before engaging in a bit of small talk. My entourage circulated through the room, chatting with the hangers-on attached to the other representatives. Eventually, though, it was time for things to get serious. I returned to my side of the table, my people arrayed behind me, while everybody else gathered on the other side.

The ongoing chatter of conversation faded to a light buzz, then to total silence. The Prime Minister looked around to confirm that he had everybody's attention before clearing his throat and opening the meeting.

"We've discussed the current difficulties in light of your statement yesterday. I believe we've settled the principal points between ourselves to everybody's satisfaction," he said. "Here, you can read the summary for yourself."

He slid a piece of paper across the table. I flipped it around so that I could read it, making sure to angle it so that the others could read it over my shoulder. The contents were rather straightforward.

Germania was to demilitarize the Rhineland. All military structures west of the Rhine or within fifty miles to the east of the Rhine were to be destroyed, and no new structures were to be built.

Germania was forbidden from developing heavy bombers.

Germania was restricted in building a navy in accordance with my discussion with Mr. Lloyd.

Germania was to renounce all extra-territorial claims and affirm the current borders.

Germania was forbidden from entering military alliances with any of the other Imperial successor states.

Germania was to release any foreign military prisoners to their country of origin.

Germania was to normalize relations with the Republic of Francois, extending all diplomatic courtesy to its chosen ambassador.

Other than as spelled out in the new treaty, the restrictions of Triano were rescinded. Germania could build an army and air force according to its own judgment, owed no reparations payments, and could enter into trade agreements with the other Imperial successor states.

The terms were generous. Astoundingly so. It also made no mention of my future. I could feel my heartbeat pick up at the implication.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. They wouldn't offer terms like this and then demand my execution. And the Francois couldn't possibly tolerate my continued occupation of the chancellorship. My future was no doubt to be determined in a side agreement, just as the various financial arrangements made by the Unified States would be.

I studied the faces of the men seated across the table. The Francois ambassador looked like he had smelled something unpleasant. Mr. Johnston looked pleased with himself, as always. The Legadonian big shot looked like he was just happy not to be the focus of attention, while the Prime Minister looked perfectly content with how things were going.

"So I'm to tell my people that I've abandoned their brethren in Alsace-Lorraine?" I asked. My goals were twofold. First, to at least make a token effort at bargaining. Second, to offer the Prime Minister an easy opportunity to correct the mistaken assumption about my future role.

"Some brethren, taken into the Empire by force and-" the Francois ambassador began, more than a little heat in his voice, before the Prime Minister cut him off.

"We think it's in the best interests of peace, stability, and international cooperation," he said, "for national borders to be fixed and not be subject to change by force of arms."

"The Empire felt the same way after the last Treaty of Londinium," I replied, "but I suppose that's your prerogative as the victor."

Damn it, they really were intent on giving away the store. Appeasement was the order of the day. Which meant that anything that went wrong in Europe would all be my fault from now on, at least according to the history books and any post-war tribunals.

I wanted to scream at them all and storm out of the room. But how could I? This was a chance to get my voters everything they wanted. If I wasted this chance, they'd burn me in effigy in Berun. In effigy, if I was lucky.

There was nothing for it but to smile and sign on the dotted line.

ooOoo

The atmosphere on board the Germanian ship had been tense and silent on the way to Londinium. On the way home, it was one big party. Neither situation was exactly to Visha's liking. She appreciated the happiness shared by all of her fellow countrymen, not to mention the camaraderie that developed as stuffy government officials got drunk together with off duty members of the ship's crew, but she was never one for wild parties.

That was probably why she was the only one who noticed that the hero of the hour was missing.

Visha had spent years by the side of Tanya von Degurechaff. First as a corporal, then as a lieutenant, and now as deputy chancellor. In all that time, one thing she had noticed was that her superior's mood often seemed to zig as others zagged. Then Major Degurechaff had been perfectly content fighting in the hell of the Rhine front day after day, only to be reduced to an emotional wreck as everybody else celebrated in the wake of the armistice established with the Francois.

So Visha wasn't surprised when she realized the chancellor wasn't in a celebratory mood. As a good subordinate, though, she couldn't stand by and let her leader spend the whole night brooding by herself.

Visha squared her shoulders and repeated that to herself a couple of times before she gathered the courage to knock on the door of the Chancellor's stateroom. There was no response. She knocked again. Still, there was no sound other than the strains of an old drinking tune drifting over from the party on the rear deck. She knocked a third time, and was finally rewarded with a slurred response.

"Go 'way."

Visha immediately opened the door. Inside, the Chancellor was perched on the small couch that marked the sitting area of her quarters, her shoulders slouched in a way that Visha had rarely seen. Several bottles of wine sat on the steamer trunk in front of her, along with a single half empty glass.

Visha stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She paused for just a moment to push down a sudden bout of nerves, then walked further into the room. The Chancellor's gaze followed her all the way, although she looked rather bleary eyed and seemed to sway in time with the motion of the ship. Visha finally came to a halt standing in front of the couch, close enough that she could almost taste the alcohol in the air. She wasn't quite sure what to do with her hands.

"What's wrong?"

Visha had followed Tanya von Degurechaff through military campaigns, political campaigns, and all the vagaries of day to day life that came with a shared living space. Despite all that, Visha found herself learning new things about the Chancellor all the time. Today's lesson, apparently, was that she was a maudlin drunk.

"We could, we could just take a couple of orbs and go, right? Fly away, stow away, just... away," the Chancellor said, stumbling over her words, but gradually building momentum. "Argentina. Argentina is warm, and safe. We'll have a villa. Raise horses, maybe."

Visha had never heard of a country called Argentina. But if the Chancellor said it was nice, then it was nice. Still, this didn't sound like a long held dream that the chancellor wanted to chase. It sounded more like somewhere she wanted to go in order to escape.

"Why run from Berun? The people love you."

"Now, maybe," the Chancellor scoffed, picking up the glass and slugging down the remaining wine in one go, "see how they feel when the Red Army comes marching in."

The Red Army, to the best of Visha's knowledge, was currently gathering in Siberia. The Russy Federation was gearing up for yet another attempt to push the Akitsushima Dominion off the mainland once and for all. Part of her ached at the inevitable loss of so many lives from the country of her birth, but she didn't see how the army was a threat to her adopted country.

"I don't think-"

"You were there at the meeting. What did you see?"

Visha blinked, taken aback by the sudden lucidity of the question. Even a drunken Tanya von Degurechaff was more intimidating than any of the instructors from officer candidate school.

Even after taking a minute to think about it, Visha couldn't think of anything to say but the obvious. "We got everything we could have wanted?"

"Appeasement! Rank appeasement," the Chancellor said, snatching at a wine bottle for emphasis. She missed, but took hold of it on the second try, refilling her glass before continuing. "Today they sell out the Francois to placate us, tomorrow they'll sell us out to the reds. They won't protect us."

"Didn't you used to say that the Allied Kingdom wouldn't tolerate a hegemon?"

"Some day they might carve out a country to occupy the same spot on the map," the Chancellor replied, pausing to take another drink, "but what will be left after the commies have the run of the place for so long?"

That was a chilling thought. Visha had heard stories of the horrors taking place in her homeland. She still held out hope for a counter-revolution that could return the country to a sane system of government, but part of her had always feared that Russy had already been changed beyond recognition.

"Can't we hold them off on our own?"

"It's too much. Look at the map. Too much space," the Chancellor said, gesturing with the hand holding the glass and ignoring the wine that slopped over the edge, "too many tanks, too many guns, too many men. Barbarossa is an idiot's dream. I'm no genius but even I know, we can't hold back the red tide."

Over the years, Visha had learned to adapt to her superior's habit of strange thinking and strange terminology. Way back when she was following Lieutenant Degurechaff around in the Rhine, she had decided: she would do her best to understand what the Lieutenant told her to do, so she could do as the Lieutenant wished; when she didn't understand, she would follow orders anyway. That habit had served her well throughout her time at the Chancellor's side.

Still, the whole idea of shrinking from a fight didn't seem like something Visha ever would have heard from Lieutenant Degurechaff, Major Degurechaff, or Chancellor Degurechaff. Visha wondered if she was too drunk to even realize what she was saying. "You want to run away?"

Much to her shock, her question didn't bring an immediate unequivocal denial. Instead, silence hung heavy in the air for a long moment.

"The Francois hate me. The commies hate me. The Unified States and the Allied Kingdom are nervous about me. God hates me. I can't- I can't," Tanya said, her voice breaking. She looked down, refusing to make eye contact. "If I leave, at least somebody else has a chance to sort things out."

Visha felt her own heart sink. She could only curse herself for her own shortsightedness. Tanya had always cared deeply for the people under her command. She should have realized that as that number expanded from the 48 members of the 203rd to the millions of people of Germania, the burden Tanya felt would increase accordingly. It was too much for any one person to shoulder by themselves. Even the seemingly indestructible Chancellor Degurechaff.

Still, the idea that anybody else would do a better job was pure wine-soaked foolishness.

Visha cleared a space for herself to sit on the steamer trunk. She made sure to keep eye contact as she placed her hands on Tanya's shoulders.

"I remember you told me, back on the Rhine, the way to handle a large problem is to break it down into smaller problems."

"So?" Tanya said, mulish.

"So you have time. You don't have to fix everything all at once. The Russy Federation just declared another war in the east not long ago," Visha said. "It will take them a long time to turn back west. You might even have to face an election before an invasion."

Something she said got through to her friend. It was like a jolt of electricity had run through her. Tanya leaped to her feet, shedding the shroud of alcohol and defeatism like it had never been there to begin with.

"An election! You're right, you're absolutely right," Tanya said, raising her arms in triumph. "Visha, I could kiss you!"

Visha's heart sped up at the shock of the sudden movement. Before she had a chance to gather herself, she was hit with an entirely different shock as Tanya toppled backwards onto the couch. Fortunately, her fears were dispersed before they had a chance to properly form as a loud snore echoed through the room.

She chuckled to herself, happy to have navigated a treacherous conversation to arrive at a familiar situation. As a faithful adjutant, she had put in more than her fair share of time cleaning up after the Chancellor.

The couch was small, but it was still large enough for the Chancellor to sleep on with leg room to spare. There was no need to carry her to the bed. Visha instead spent a little time arranging her in a more comfortable sleeping position, then retrieved a blanket from the bed to keep her warm.

She then turned to the wine, discovering with a wry smile that only one of the bottles had been opened, and that bottle was still a quarter full. She stowed the still sealed bottles away, then retrieved the glass that the chancellor had tossed aside in her excitement. Fortunately, it had been mostly empty at the time. Visha felt a little guilty at leaving the stain for some unfortunate sailor to scrub out, but not guilty enough to do it herself.

She poured herself a glass of wine and sat back down on the steamer trunk as she took a sip, savoring the warmth of the alcohol as it settled in her chest. She didn't mind keeping watch, at least for a little while.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Just to head off some comments, the focus on aircraft carriers is a mistake on Tanya's part. She remembers that after WWII carriers were the premier capital ship. She also remembers that the war in the Pacific was defined by the carrier battles. What she doesn't realize is that carriers are poorly suited to an eastern European power focused on the Baltic Sea (the Soviet Union only ever built one real carrier, in the 70s). The relatively tight quarters mean that minefields are a real problem and that air power can largely be supplied by land based planes._


	16. Chapter 16

_AN: Quick timeline in case anybody's having trouble keeping track:_

 _1914 (Sep) Tanya born (canon)_  
 _1923 War starts (canon)_  
 _1931 War ends_  
 _1932 (Oct) Tanya elected_  
 _1936 (Oct) Tanya becomes chancellor_  
 _1937 (June) Second conference of Londinium_

ooOoo

Frederick Rosenvelt, governor of New Amsterdam, held open a newspaper broadsheet as he studied its contents. Finished, he quietly folded it back to its original configuration, revealing the front page of a week old copy of the New Amsterdam Times. Pride of place was occupied by a picture of Germanian Chancellor Tanya von Degurechaff, caught in the act of running her hand through her hair shortly after descending on Londinium from the sky.

Rosenvelt's wife had already asked him where she might buy a copy of her leather jacket.

The headline of the New Amsterdam Times explained, with its typical restraint, "Chancellor Degurechaff Arrives Early to Diplomatic Summit." Rosenvelt set the paper down on his desk, on top of the same day's New Amsterdam Post, featuring the same picture and the full page announcement, "DEVIL DROPS BY FOR TEA." Rosenvelt reached for the next newspaper on the pile, this one far more difficult for an American to obtain. There wasn't much call for Germanian party newsletters to be delivered to America, after all, even one with the relatively grandiose name of the National Observer.

Rosenvelt was not exactly fluent in Germanian, but he could puzzle out the language well enough. His task was made easier by the fact that the only portion of the newsletter that he was interested in was the transcription of one of then-representative Degurechaff's speeches.

The Governor's office was silent but for the rustling of paper and the ticking of his grandfather clock. Spending his precious free time reading through a foreign politician's body of rhetoric wasn't exactly Rosenvelt's idea of a good time, but he didn't mind. It was far from the most onerous thing he'd had to do in order to get as far as he had in his career.

The silence wasn't broken until after he had worked through almost all of his reading material. A knock sounded on the door, followed a moment later by the door cracking open as his secretary poked her head into the office.

"Mr. Morrow's here to see you, sir."

"Excellent, send him in."

Charles Morrow had been one of the pioneers who built the Unified States's aerial mage program from scratch. While the Legadonian immigrant Mary Sue had been a more powerful mage and racked up more individual accomplishments during the war, it was Morrow, more than anybody else, who was responsible for the impressive performance of the aerial mage corps as a whole.

Now retired from the military and in his early forties, Morrow spent much of his time raising hell on the New Amsterdam social scene. Not much of a change from his younger days, in truth. It had taken the American entry into the Great War to get him to buckle down and stop chasing tail, and Rosenvelt honestly wasn't even sure that had done the trick.

The two men first met years ago at a "farewell to booze" party on the eve of Prohibition. The staid politician and wild-eyed flight mage had first found common ground over a drink. Over time they had developed an odd but genuine friendship.

One of Rosenvelt's cousins had some business interests in Germania. Morrow had been happy to be hired for a short term job "exploring investment opportunities." Considering that Rosenvelt wanted a first hand report of the country that had been in the news so often recently, he didn't even mind that Morrow had likely spent half his time in beer halls.

"Charlie, good to see you," Rosenvelt said, grasping his friend's hand as he came to stand in front of the desk.

"Governor," Morrow said, before Rosenvelt waved him off.

"None of that, now," he said, before wheeling himself over to the cabinet by the wall. "If memory serves, you take your martini dry, with two olives."

"What would the people of New Amsterdam say if they knew their governor was violating the Constitution so easily?"

"They'd probably ask me for a drink," Rosenvelt said. He could sympathize with the motivation of the temperance movement, but by now Prohibition was more farce than law. The experiment had some value, at least, in showing that even the Constitution couldn't change human nature.

"Ah, what the hell," Morrow said. "I could use it."

"Did you not get a chance to recover?" Rosenvelt asked, frowning even as he mixed the drink with practiced ease. "I instructed the staff to give you some space."

Friends in high places had helped Morrow hold on to his computation orb after he retired. It was a handy thing when it came to moving around the world, though there were few who could use it to fly across the Atlantic in one go. That kind of long distance flight took a toll on the body, and Morrow wasn't as young as he used to be.

"No, no, it was fine," Morrow said, taking the proffered glass and taking a grateful sip. "My body just half thinks it's still on Berun time."

Rosenvelt was old enough to remember the time before powered flight and the modern computation orb. He considered it something of a miracle that within the course of his life would come a time when a man could be disoriented by rapidly changing time zones.

"Speaking of Berun," he said, "how are things in Germania these days?"

"You'll love this," Morrow replied. "I picked it up from a roadside stall."

He reached into his satchel and withdrew a small wooden statue. The carving depicted a woman holding her hand out in benediction while staring out over the world with a stern expression on her face. Rosenvelt would have thought it a depiction of an angel but for two things. First, the statue lacked wings. Second, while the dress the figure was wearing fit with religious tradition, the distinct Germanian military-style jacket on its upper body very much did not.

"Is Degurechaff encouraging this kind of thing?"

If so, he had badly misread her.

"Nah, they're popping up out in the sticks. You know how superstitious farmers can be," Morrow said. "Now, these are all the rage in the capital right now."

The next item he drew out of his satchel was a political armband. A solid red color, interrupted by a white circle. Inside of the white space was a black line drawing of a circle topped with a cross. A computation orb, a feminine symbol, or a reminder of religious iconography... the simple nature of the image belied the complexity involved in interpreting its meaning. Typical of anything related to Degurechaff.

"I gotta say, I don't understand why you're spending so much time studying this girl," Morrow added.

"Every citizen should show an interest in current events," Rosenvelt replied, briefly affecting a professorial air before shrugging. "Besides, I've always found it rewarding to study the roots of other's success."

"You're a pretty successful politician yourself."

It was a fair point. And yet Rosenvelt knew that his friend was only seeing the result of a long and arduous process, a process that he didn't expect would end in his lifetime.

"My cousin was a weak and timid child. He disliked that about himself, so he decided to find out what brave and strong people did, and forced himself to do the same," Rosenvelt said. "He never stopped, which is how he became the Teddy Rosenvelt that you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Morrow said, "you want to steal a trick from Degurechaff, go win some medals first."

"I'll see about getting machine guns fitted to my chair."

The two men shared a laugh, and Rosenvelt counted it as a small victory. It had taken quite some time before he had been able to joke about his disability.

"Seriously, though, I did get a chance to hear her speak. She's... intense," Morrow said. "I'm not sure her style would fly here in America. She talks like she's about to send her boys charging a machine gun nest."

"You might be right," Rosenvelt admitted. He paused for a moment to mix up his own drink. As he did, his eye drifted back to the most recent speech that he'd been reviewing. There was something that had been bothering him. "Do you know what this word means? It shows up all over her speeches."

Usually, the more often a word appeared, the easier it was to figure out from context. This one, though, showed up in so many places that it only got more confusing the more often it appeared. Rosenvelt figured that Morrow could clear it up for him. The man had a solid grasp of the language after all the time he'd spent in the country.

"That? The phrasing is a little funny, but it means 'safety net,'" Morrow said. "Like what they put under the acrobats at the circus."

All at once, like a picture coming into focus, what had been a series of somewhat disjointed, rambling speeches clicked together in Rosenvelt's mind. All of those random promises that seemed only to appeal to specific interest groups weaved together into a single structure.

Degurechaff wasn't blind to the flaws of the capitalist system. Just like the communists, she could point out the problems created by the profit motive when it was allowed to run wild. Unlike the communists, though, she didn't want to tear down the whole thing and start over. She didn't even really speak of punishing any particular evildoers. Instead, she offered to protect workers against the worst dangers of the marketplace, while allowing them to keep the fruit of their own labors.

No, a simple hot-blooded military fanatic could never have come up with something like that.

"I knew there would be something worth learning," Rosenvelt said, basking in the satisfaction of that moment of insight.

"I still think you're giving her too much credit," Morrow said, shaking his head. "I listened to her talk, watched her work. It's all been simple and straightforward, one step to the next."

"One way you know that you're watching a genius at work," Rosenvelt replied, "is that they make everything they do look simple and straightforward."

Germania's troubles were hardly over with the signing of the Treaty of Londinium. Much remained to be determined about the young country's place in the world. Everything that it did would take place in the shadow of the Empire. Governing the country promised all the peace and relaxation of dancing through a minefield.

He was looking forward to the opportunity to watch Degurechaff rise to the challenge.

ooOoo

Visha was kind enough not to mention my drunken ramblings after I had sobered up. I did my best to forget about how I had embarrassed myself after just two glasses of wine. I did make sure to keep in mind, though, the insight she had shared with me.

If I wanted a quiet life, it wasn't enough simply to resign. I was too high profile. People would worry that I might decide to throw my hat back into the ring and take over. No, I needed to be kicked out of public life. Exile was off the table. But there was always hope as long as there was a new election coming. Once I was voted out of office I'd have the choice to stay on and collect a salary as a powerless back bencher or to fade away into the private sector.

Once we returned to Berun, the first thing I did was to force through the securities regulations that the Diet had refused to consider in the past. My reputation was riding high in the wake of the Londinium conference, but voters were notoriously fickle. By overreaching myself, I would create resentment that would outlast any gratitude they might be feeling in the moment. Also, there was an outside chance that our coalition partners would blow up the government immediately, solving all my problems for me.

Unfortunately, the new laws didn't seem to have much effect. It seemed that telling Germanian businessmen that they needed to fill out some extra paperwork in order to stay in business wasn't quite enough to spark a revolt. Foreign investment ticked down a little bit, but it was hard to tell if it was the result of the new laws. Berun was already a backwater as far as international capital was concerned. I consoled myself with the thought that at least the new laws would restrain some of the crazier practices that seemed to be common in this era around issuing and trading securities.

After some reflection, I realized that I had dodged a bullet. If I truly wanted a peaceful retirement, it wasn't enough simply to lose my job. After all, I could do that at any time just be creating a sufficiently shocking scandal. No, I needed to address the underlying problem. I could hardly enjoy my retirement if my successor immediately plunged the country into war.

I had shown the country that it was possible to succeed politically as a bellicose militarist. I had demonstrated that you could form a majority coalition by fusing war-mongering rhetoric with business-friendly policies. Sure, I had enjoyed the advantage of modern political techniques, but now that I had shown the way it would be easy enough for somebody else to copy what I had done. To secure a quiet life, I would not just have to retire, but also blow up my coalition to the point that it couldn't be repaired.

I needed wedge issues.

Fundamentally, wedge issues exist because political coalitions are made up of different people, each with their own hopes, dreams, preferences, and theories. Every person who voted for a candidate other than themselves was compromising in some way. Wedge issues came into being along the fault lines of those compromises. Any time two people agreed on a general principle and agreed to disagree on the specifics, a latent wedge issue was born.

Much of the strategy of modern politics involves trying to make the wedge issues plaguing your opponents the center of discussion while downplaying the importance of the wedge issues lurking within your own party. Of course, voters weren't fools. It's hard to convince them of the importance of any issue when you talk to them as a representative of an opponent. On the other hand, voters tended to be more receptive to what their own compatriots had to say.

For example, my own party had campaigned on the promise of virulent opposition to the Treaty of Triano. The natural wedge issue was the question of what that opposition would translate into in practical terms. Passive resistance? The invasion of the Francois Republic? Restarting the Great War? Of course, other politicians had tried to point out such things. My supporters, the lovable maniacs that they were, simply refused to countenance any such questions from outsiders who they thought had sold out the fatherland. On the other hand, if I had spent too much time in the campaign talking about specifics, the whole party could have destroyed itself by infighting.

The Treaty of Triano was no longer an issue, of course. But the Germanian Workers' Party still had its fair share of fault lines. I just had to bring them to the surface.

So it was that I found myself at the head of a long table filled with military big shots. Admirals and Generals, the members of the General Staff, officers qualified to be given overall theater command, and their naval equivalents, all looked at me to start the day's meeting. Visha and General Lergen were by my side at the head of the table, while General Zettour was in the closest seat to us. It had been two weeks since my return from Londinium, and it was time to discuss the future of the military.

There had been quite a lot of turnover at the top ranks since the end of the war and my own military service. The only other familiar face at the table was General Ziegler, freshly returned from transporting the remains of the Francois invasion force to their homeland. I vaguely recognized a few of the other military leaders, but I didn't see anybody else who I knew personally.

Nobody was smoking, which was a pleasant surprise. I appreciated the courtesy.

"Gentlemen, a whole new world of opportunities have opened up to us with the repeal of most of the troublesome provisions of the Treaty of Triano," I said. "Before we discuss that, though... well, it's our tradition to learn from our mistakes. I'm sure that you've already had this discussion, but I hope that you'll indulge me and share your insights. So, why did we lose the Great War?"

Naturally, everybody in the room had an opinion on that question. Having risen to the top in the meritocratic Imperial military, nobody there would be shy about expressing themselves or unable to back their claims up with facts and logic. The ensuing discussion touched on each point in the familiar litany of mistakes made during the war.

Committing the central army to an all out invasion of the Legadonia Entente. Allowing the Legadonian fleet to escape, later to play a vital role in the Francois evacuation. Agreeing to an armistice that permitted the Francois evacuation, leading to the formation of the Free Francois army. Straining logistics and the Imperial economy to pursue the Francois to Africa while garrisoning half of Europe. Refusing the mediation offered by the Allied Kingdom. All of the naval debacles suffered at the hands of the Allied Kingdom. Unleashing the unrestricted submarine warfare that provoked the Unified States into joining the war.

The defense of the Empire in the later stages of the war hadn't been without its share of mistakes, but by general consensus the war had been decided by that point. The discussion instead revolved around which of the earlier mistakes had been defensible decisions at the time, which had been outright blunders, and how those blunders might have been avoided.

Nobody brought up my personal answer to the question. I was torn between feeling pleased and feeling disappointed.

Once the discussion finally started winding down, I rapped on the table to get everyone's intention.

"I'm afraid we've forgotten our past," I said. _"War is a continuation of politics by other means."_

I had checked to make sure that the relevant quote existed in this world as well.

"Foreigners might like to describe our nation as a military with a state attached, but we know that to be a vile calumny. Our history is replete with talented diplomats and statesmen, not merely an excellent military," I said. "Unfortunately, that very excellence grew to the point that it dazzled the rest of the government, blinding them to their own responsibilities."

It's a sad fact that mediocre employees will try to shift their duties onto their more talented compatriots. It cheats the employer in two ways. One employee is paid to do no work, while the other was put to work outside of their core competency. In the private sector, the solution was to fire the malingerer. In the government, things were more complicated.

"For example, the invasion of Legadonia," I continued. "I've heard those defending the decision argue that it presented an opportunity to remove an enemy from the Empire's borders. I take it that was also the argument at the time?"

"It was," General Zettour answered. "I remember that day well."

"Implicitly, the political goal being pursued was the annexation of Legadonia?" I asked. "On the theory that no other country could or would intervene? And nobody from outside of the military was consulted on the matter?"

I could see the ripple around the table as everybody's hackles went up at the aggressive questioning.

"We were invaded. It was up to the military to decide how to respond," a general said, apparently speaking for everybody.

"It's acceptable for a private to focus on killing the enemy and staying alive. Their jobs are hard enough as it is. Even a captain or a major can rightly focus on defeating the enemy army in front of him," I said, pausing to take a sip of my coffee. "But a general should know better. Finishing a war requires diplomacy. Compromise. Politics."

Of course, there was no need for all of that if you could smash everybody who objected to concluding the war on your preferred terms. When the list of objecting parties was more or less every country in the world, though, that wasn't a realistic solution.

"Would the rest of the world acquiesce in the face of our annexation of Legadonia? If not, could we tell the entire world to pound sand and make it stick? Those questions should have been asked before starting the debate on how best to destroy the Legadonian army."

I set down my coffee and sighed theatrically.

"In truth, I don't hold the military primarily responsible for losing the war," I said. "You can't blame a hound for running wild after its master drops the lead."

"Chancellor!"

The room erupted with a babble of protest. I gave them a moment to get it out of their system before rapping on the table for silence.

"War is the application of military power in pursuit of a political end," I said. "Anything else is just mindless killing."

The room looked ready to erupt again, but I forestalled any outbursts by leaping to my feet, slapping the table for emphasis.

"The military was in theory a tool of the Emperor. It will in fact be a tool of the civilian government," I said. "Take this to heart. You will give advice as to the proper course of action. I will decide."

I looked around the room, evaluating responses one by one. Overall, things seemed to be going to plan. I made sure to put a bit of extra heat in my gaze when I locked eyes with anybody who looked particularly rebellious.

"We will adjourn for one week. If you are unable to accept the supremacy of the elected government, then by all means resign with honor. You will receive a full pension, as well as my gratitude for your honesty," I continued. "But if anybody does not resign, and instead seeks to subvert in secret the will of the people... well, he will not receive the opportunity to resign."

The most fervent portion of my base consisted of war maniacs, and their strongest belief was support for a strong military. Even they had their differences, though. To some, a strong military was a military capable of serving the fatherland's needs. To others, a strong military was a military that steered the fatherland in the right direction. Of course, there was a lot of overlap between those outlooks, so the group was unlikely to splinter unless forced to make a choice.

Pushing the military as hard as I had should do exactly that. I expected a decent number of generals to resign and to go to the people with their views. It might be hard for them to convince the people to vote for what was practically speaking a military dictatorship, but after all I had managed to collect a decent number of voters in favor of a suicidal war. Shepherding the birth of an ultra-ultra-militaristic party should splinter my own voters quite nicely.

Ordinarily, there might be a risk of a coup after being so confrontational with the military. Fortunately, the only aerial mage contingent in the armed forces was unquestionably loyal to me, so worst come to worst I'd at least be able to take my Type 97 and flee the country safely.

I looked around the room once more, happy to see everybody at the table deep in thought.

"I'll see you in a week."

ooOoo

I had a meeting with some big shots from the auto industry the next day. Before that, though, I carved out some time in the morning to meet with Elya. It was past time to put her on the government payroll.

"Elya, your team was vital to our victory over the Francois occupation force," I said. "The nation owes you a debt of gratitude."

"Thank you, Chancellor," she said, giving a little curtsy.

"I've been thinking that it's about time we established a proper intelligence bureau," I said.

As much as I had talked up the Empire's proud history of accomplishments in diverse fields of human endeavor, it was hard to identify any notable successes in the area of espionage. The military intelligence department of the army had a long and unbroken history of continued existence, but that was about it. Other than that, the Empire had relied on its diplomats to keep their ears to the ground and keep the Empire informed. The efficacy of that approach could be seen in the fact that the Empire had been caught by surprise by three separate declarations of war in the space of five years.

Elya had proven to have a good head on her shoulders. She was a bit young to be organizing a whole new government department, but then I was a bit young to be chancellor. My only worry was that she would be reluctant to take on the task. After all, I had hired her initially to supervise various peaceful endeavors, not to jump into the murky world of espionage and counter-espionage.

"Wonderful!" she replied, a genuine smile on her face.

Sometimes I wondered if all aerial mages loved charging into dangerous situations like crazed maniacs. Well, at least I was sane.

"Of course, we should still be discreet with the budget request," I said. "I'll admit I've had some trouble coming up with a good cover story."

It's impossible to keep the existence of a government agency secret forever. At least, I assumed so. For all I know, Japan had an alien-fighting super sentai team that it kept off the books until long after my death. Practically speaking, though, in a democracy I figured that sort of information would get out eventually. On the other hand, I'd rather not let the whole world see the Diet pass a budget with a big number of marks written next to "spy stuff" on the ledger.

"Perhaps a new Secretarial Department?" Elya said. "Intended to handle any administrative tasks assigned by the chancellor."

I knew there was a reason I trusted her with sneaky activities.

"Perfect," I said. "Your first task will be to track foreign spies who enter Germania. Mostly in order to keep them away from private information, but ideally I would like to know if anybody is poking their nose into any of our business."

"I will find and eliminate anybody who dares to spy on the fatherland," Elya said, writing busily in her ever present notebook.

"Ah, well, sometimes," I said. Spy work wasn't always clean. "If we can control what they see, though, sometimes it will be better to leave them in place."

"Understood!"

"Your second responsibility will be to gather information from other countries," I said. "In particular, from the Francois Rebulic, the Kingdom of Ildoa, and the Russy Federation."

The Francois had recently been humiliated and no doubt would love to take their anger out on us. The communists, of course, wanted to export their revolution to the whole world. The Ildoans, for their part, had been showing worrying sign of social instability. Though we no longer shared a border thanks to the divestment of Osterrian territory, Ildoa was close enough to cause us problems if things really went bad.

"About that," Elya said, surprisingly hesitant. "I've been looking into it. We have an easy enough time blending in and moving invisibly through Germania. People are used to seeing our pollsters by now, so one or two extra girls don't draw any attention. It's harder to slip through a foreign country without being noticed."

It was to be expected. It's always easier to operate in your own backyard.

I still felt a bit frustrated. Part of me was tempted to just tell Elya to deal with it herself. I pushed that impulse down. I was going to be relying on her to be my eyes and ears for the next few years. The least I could do was contribute a few ideas. It was too bad I was naturally such a straightforward, rational person.

The convenient use of poll workers to hide spy movement after the Francois Republic invaded was a pure stroke of good fortune, not the sort of thing I could replicate on command. Although, come to think of it, why mess with success?

"Can't we do the same thing?" I asked. "We'd have to find a local sympathizer who could start running polling operations, but then your people could blend right in."

"Polling is pretty expensive," Elya replied, doubtful. "I'm not sure a private citizen can afford it. We could pay, of course, but somebody might notice what's going on."

It took me a moment to understand her objection. I was so used to the idea of polling operations as profitable businesses that I had forgotten that she had only been exposed to polling as the private tool of a political party.

"Of course, it would have to be in the context of a business," I said. "Our local supporter would sell the political horse race numbers to a reputable newspaper. If they're lucky, they could even hire on as a consultant for a politician who wants access to the full data."

Honestly, even setting aside the useful access to cover identities, just gathering ordinary political polling information would be more than most of the Empire's diplomats ever managed.

"I'm not sure how much money that would bring in," Elya said.

"As long as it's a little bit, we can fill in the rest," I replied. "If somebody is looking at the books closely enough to figure it out, they'll probably already be on to us."

"Ah, right," Elya said. "Although I don't think the Russy Federation will allow such a thing."

"That's true," I acknowledged. "They'll be a tough nut to crack."

I was fresh out of ideas on that front. One advantage to running a paranoid terroristic police state was that it was pretty hard for anybody else to get information from inside their borders.

"I'll start with the expatriates living here," Elya said. "Maybe I can find somebody who knows somebody useful back home."

"All right," I replied. "Take your time and do it right."

"Of course!"

At least she was enthusiastic. I hoped that her sunny personality wouldn't be worn down by any of the morally suspect actions required of her new job.

ooOoo

I took a car out to the luncheon. It felt appropriate, when I would be meeting with prominent members of the industry. Looking out the windows as we drove, it was hard to say whether the automobile business was booming. The cars that I saw looked impressive, but there didn't seem to be that many of them on the road.

Lunch was, well, typical. Germania produced such a wide variety of sausages that some of them almost had to be to my taste. I was still holding out hope that I would discover which ones they were some day. At least there wasn't any K-brot mixed in with the rolls.

The conversation, as expected, revolved around cars. After all, the people present at the table were car company executives, top car designers, and me. I tuned out most of it.

I was far from being a car person. I'd never owned a car back in Japan, as I didn't need one thanks to the country's excellent public transportation. Germania also had a solid passenger train network, and in my new life I naturally felt even less need for a car when I could fly under my own power. I did start paying closer attention when I heard somebody mention the new highway system.

It seemed that car company CEOs of this era were still hot rod enthusiasts at heart rather than stuffy businessmen, judging by the stirring tale one of them was relating of a high speed race on a deserted road. It sounded reckless, but largely harmless. At least until he mentioned that a key moment of the race went his way thanks to the sun reflecting into his opponent's eyes.

"You race on the highway during the day time?"

That brought the conversation to a sudden halt. The CEO, Paul Däumler if I was remembering correctly, looked like a little boy who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It seemed I had been quiet enough during the meal that they had forgotten they were dining with a government official.

"Madame Chancellor? Ah, well," Däumler said, before pausing to clear his throat. "That is to say, of course we follow the applicable safety rules and regulations."

"Never mind that," I said, "what about the traffic?"

That brought laughter from everybody gathered around the table, laughter that turned a little nervous as it became clear that I wasn't joking. Eventually, through a series of sidelong glances, it fell to Däumler to explain the situation.

The long and the short of it was that very few people ever drove their cars long distances. The highways that I had spent so much taxpayer money to build were fairly busy in and around large cities, but out in the countryside many areas saw only a handful of cars pass by per hour. Däumler took pains to assure me that the roads were wonderfully built, which was small comfort.

It seemed that my plans to modernize the country's infrastructure had failed to take into account the general poverty of the people. In the absence of an affordable, reliable car capable of traveling at highway speeds, the roads that I had ordered built were little more than playgrounds for the rich.

I rubbed my temples for a moment, just long enough to let the wave of embarrassment subside. "How much does it cost to buy a car from your company? The cheapest one."

"2,500 marks," Däumler replied, before turning to the man next to him.

"2,250."

"2,400."

"2,650."

"2,300."

The answers came in from around the table. I didn't exactly manage a household budget, as the government took care of most of my expenses, but I did make a point to swing by a grocery store from time to time and I paid attention to what we were paying the men building the roads. Some quick mental arithmetic told me that those men would be able to afford a car capable of using the road they were building approximately never.

The problem, it seemed, was not just that nobody could afford a car but also that nobody was building affordable cars.

"Wouldn't it be possible, using modern production methods, to build and sell a car for less?" I asked. "Say, around a thousand marks?"

Not only was a thousand marks a conveniently round number, it was also low enough that a reasonable financing package ought to let an ordinary worker buy a car. Perhaps not an ordinary worker, but rather somebody with an ordinary salary who was willing to scrimp and save for a while.

"That, well," Däumler began, using the tone of voice one adopts when telling a powerful person "no."

"It can be done!"

The man who interrupted him hadn't been one of the men to list off prices earlier. I figured he should an auto designer, then, though I had forgotten his name. His attitude, mustache and receding hairline put me in mind of Dr. Schugel, unfortunately.

"Oh, don't get Anton started."

One of the other CEOs said before heaving a long-suffering sigh. I looked to Däumler for an explanation.

"Anton Ehrlich is a brilliant designer," Däumler said, "but his People's Car idea..."

"It will work, I tell you," Ehrlich insisted. "A family car capable of 100 kilometers per hour for 1,000 marks. All I need is a factory built to the proper specifications."

"Unfortunately," Daumler said, "understanding cars is different from understanding car buyers."

"Our customers expect a certain level of sophistication."

"Ehrlich's bug might hit 100 kilometers per hour if you drove it off a cliff."

"You would only hit 1,000 marks per unit if you sold tens of thousands of them... and that's after stripping everything off that makes a car worth buying."

None of the executives were shy about expressing their opinions. It seemed that nobody could even envision the idea of middle class car buyers. Or, rather, they could envision it, but dismissed it as a pipe dream.

There was an opportunity here. Not an investment opportunity. Well, obviously there was an investment opportunity, but none of the corporate titans here were interested. If I were to throw some money at the idea, though, it wouldn't be an investment. It would be a state-owned enterprise.

Is there a more polarizing phrase in any language? The staid conservatives who had joined with the Germanian Workers' Party to form a coalition would recoil at the mere hint that I planned such an interference with the free market. On the other hand, the less economically sophisticated people that made up my own party could easily fall in love with the idea of good paying jobs and cheap goods provided by the state. I couldn't ask for a better tool to drive our political partnership to self-destruction.

The problem was that on this issue I had my own strong opinion. I shared the capitalists' disdain for the idea of the state participating in the market economy. Sure, I could try to justify this particular intervention: the free market had failed to fulfill an important need, so the state needed to step in to show what was possible. Sheer sophistry. If a viable customer base existed, sooner or later somebody who wanted to make money would come along to serve their needs. To use tax dollars to step into the market was to take a big step towards communism and all the inefficiency and misery that entailed.

On the other hand, it would also be a big step towards my quiet retirement. Well, it's impossible to go through life without ever making a compromise.

ooOoo

 _AN2: For reference, the exchange rate hovers between four or five marks per dollar. An entry level American car costs around $500, usually a shade more and sometimes a bit less. In present day terms, $500 amounts to roughly $8500, although of course an entry level car back then was pretty bare bones. Financing your purchase was also a lot more restrictive._

 _AN3: There are of course many ways one can interpret Clausewitz. The classic stereotypical Prussian take was that if you didn't get what you wanted by politics you should just declare war and take it. Tanya's arguing the contrapositive, namely that you shouldn't go to war unless you've figured out the politically acceptable end point._


	17. Chapter 17

_AN: The best part of YS is the meticulous execution of Tanya's foolproof plans._

ooOoo

My browbeating of the military didn't have quite as much of an effect as I had hoped.

Three generals and one admiral resigned over the course of the next week. I made sure that they were treated well on the way out the door. I even wrote an editorial for the Berun Post summarizing what had happened and praising them for their integrity. I wished them all the best in their new civilian lives. I hoped they would prove more effective on the campaign trail than they had during the military campaigns at the end of the war.

That last bit was my private wish for them, not something I included in the editorial.

Not everybody felt so sanguine. Elya managed to buttonhole me as I was on the way out of my office to finish preparing for the big meeting.

"Excuse me, Chancellor, about those generals-" she began, sounding concerned, before I cut her off.

"No need to do anything," I said. "After all, they were honorable enough to resign over a matter of principle."

Elya looked unconvinced, but she could see that I wasn't going to budge on the matter. After a moment she gave a reluctant nod.

"Besides, you have enough on your plate already," I said, tapping my chin as I thought things over. "Actually, you can stop doing political polling."

She did have a lot of responsibility. Even if I liked to get the most out of the human resources at my disposal, I understood that if you just keep piling new tasks onto people they'll eventually burn out. Besides, I had my own reasons for wanting our local polling operations to fade away.

After all, I was going to be working hard to undermine our party's appeal. It would be troublesome if somebody noticed what I was doing ahead of time. By cutting off our own polling operations I could probably push that moment of realization out until after the election. Besides, it wasn't like I needed the input of an extensive polling operation when all I wanted to do was lose support.

"Do you want me to stop completely?" Elya asked. She sounded a little chagrined.

She must have enjoyed the work more than I realized. Also, once I thought about it, I remembered that I'd gotten her to sign on as my new spymistress before she understood that a good pollster could make a comfortable living in the private sector. By the time she knew, she must have felt like she couldn't go back on her promise. That was no good. I didn't want somebody working for me out of a sense of obligation. I decided to offer her a way out.

"Well, do you want to be your own boss?"

She reacted like I had just slapped her. "Absolutely not!"

I felt a little guilty for questioning her dedication. I reached out and patted her on the shoulder.

"Then just focus on your other work," I said. "We don't need to worry about the polls any more."

"Understood," she said, nodding with enthusiasm this time. I smiled, then turned and headed for General Lergen's office. I was meeting with him to make sure that the two of us were on the same page before presenting our vision for the future to the General Staff.

Fortunately, I had set out a little early, so I still arrived at the meeting with time to spare. I could have gotten away with making General Lergen wait around, but it would have been a poor start to an important collaboration.

Our military reconstruction was not something that I wanted to mess around with for political purposes. If our army was too weak, we could wind up having to fight off an invasion before I was safely out of office. Conversely, if we spent too much money building up an enormous fighting force, my successor might just invade some neighbor or other in order to recoup the investment. Striking the right balance was important.

I was actually looking forward to it. Starting a project from a blank slate with a sizable budget appealed to that part of me that enjoyed playing SimCity. My enthusiasm was only slightly dampened by the fact that Being X would surely be clicking on his equivalent to the disaster spawning button the moment I felt I had everything under control.

General Lergen welcomed me into an office that was filled with maps, reference books, and pieces of paper covered with scrawled out facts and figures.

"This is a little exciting, isn't it?" I said. "Building an army from scratch."

He gave me a blank look. I felt a little sheepish. Not only had we had to throw out his hard work in drawing up plans for an army that could conquer the Francois Republic due to the expense involved, but also anything we could do would pale in comparison to the scale on which the Empire used to operate.

"Of course, we won't be anywhere close to the power of the Empire's military," I said.

"That's true," Lergen said, politely neutral.

I felt bad, but the math was clear. If we tried to support an army the size of the Empire's then we'd be bankrupt inside of five years.

"It can't be helped," I said. "Our economy simply can't measure up to the Empire's."

"Not just the economy," Lergen said, "we've lost so much territory and population."

"Well, that much could be overcome with a strong enough industrial base," I said. "Though even the Empire's strength wasn't enough, in the end."

I saw a stricken expression cross his face. I could relate. After all of the effort that the Empire had put into building a top rate military force, not to mention my own personal investment of blood, sweat, and tears, it was a terrible shame that the whole thing had been so thoroughly destroyed.

With any luck, we could walk a peaceful road in the future and avoid such senseless waste.

Of course, if we had simply wanted to match the number of men the Empire had under arms, we could have done it. The problem would be that such a group would be roughly as useful as the Dacian army. Instead, we wanted to build a modern military. The frustrating part of modernizing your military is that you're never really finished. As soon as a new tank runs off the assembly line it's nearly out of date. If you don't start spending money designing its replacement you're falling behind.

It was a thorny problem. Broadly speaking, I saw three approaches we could take in regard to modernizing our forces.

First, we could build up a huge army and continually replace its weapons as they became obsolete. This was the model the Empire used for years and was proven to create a military worthy of a great power. The problem was that it required the economy associated with a great power to do such a thing. We'd quickly ruin ourselves if we set off down this road.

Second, we could build up a huge army, make sure that all of its weapons were modern at one point in time, and then launch a war before those weapons went obsolete. Doing that sort of thing let you punch above your weight for a while. The problem was that if the war lasted more than one or two years your inability to replace aging weapons systems would spell doom for your forces. Also, people get pretty upset when you invade them without any justification. Taking this kind of approach could easily wind up with our country split into two and put under continuous occupation for decades.

Finally, we could maintain a small army and continuously modernize its weaponry as needed, and wait to mobilize a larger force until the last possible minute. This was the approach Albion had taken since time immemorial. We couldn't take it to the same extreme, lacking a convenient body of water to place between ourselves and our enemies, but the basic theory was sound. As long as our standing army was good enough to delay an invasion force until our reserves could mobilize, we should be all right.

Fortunately, our overall strategic situation had been clarified by the dissolution of the Empire. We actually had friendly countries on our borders now. Our only hostile neighbor was the Republic of Francois. Of course, the Russy Federation could come smashing through Pullska and the Ildoan Kingdom could reach through Osterry to cause us some trouble, but in either case we'd have time to prepare while the enemy fought through hostile territory that wasn't our responsibility to defend. Most of the Russite army was also busy a thousand miles away from us, which was nice.

Accordingly, our strategic goal for the next year or two would be to build up an army capable of holding off a Francois invasion force. I actually preferred to keep it a little smaller than the Francois army. If they felt threatened by us, it could easily lead to an unproductive arms race. Better to keep things low key.

With the basic strategy decided, all that was left was to review what we knew about the Francois army and decide what was needed to stop them from pushing through our defensive lines. The details could be filled out by the General Staff, but I wanted to at least have a rough estimate on hand before I met with them.

The final number wasn't as high as I'd expected. An army roughly two thirds the size of theirs, with more generous proportions of armor and aerial mages, looked like it should be able to do the job.

"I'm glad we can get by with that small of an army."

"Oh?" Lergen asked. "I thought you'd want a more powerful force."

"As long as they can do the job, it's fine," I said. "Besides, the less burden we put on the economy, the more it can grow. In the long term, that will circle back to strengthen the military."

He nodded, though he looked a little pained. I guess the Empire never had to choose between a strong military and a strong economy. After a moment he had worked through his disappointment, checking his notes before moving on to the next topic. "You're committed to this 'air force' idea?"

"The army fights the enemy on the land. The navy fights the enemy at sea. It makes sense to have an air force to fight the enemy in the air," I replied. "The missions of obtaining air superiority and delivering bombs are specialized enough, and important enough, to merit their own branch of the service."

He shrugged. "I suppose the fear of adding more bureaucracy hasn't ever stopped us from doing anything in the past."

"That's the spirit," I said. "Also, considering our strategy, we need to make sure that in an emergency we can build up our forces as quickly as possible."

Our strategy wasn't actually that different from the Empire's. It's just that where the Empire kept a central army ready to go that was strong enough to conquer any country daring enough to cross its borders, our reserve forces would be entirely virtual until the fighting started. Throwing an army together during a war wasn't something that went smoothly if you didn't plan for it ahead of time.

Lergen nodded. "I'll make sure we put an emphasis on training and organizing the reserves."

"We'll also need to make sure their equipment is designed with an eye for mass production," I said. "Tanks, planes, trucks, artillery, even uniforms."

I had benefited during my military career from the Empire's willingness to turn Dr. Schugel loose to build custom equipment for any particular mission. However, using Dr. Schugel or his counterparts in other fields to craft artisanal weapon systems was not a sound basis for a mass army. Especially if we wanted to be capable of conjuring army groups from thin air on demand.

I had taken a good look at the Empire's supply system when I'd written my paper on logistics. Its ability to produce supplies for so many slightly different but completely incompatible platforms was nothing short of miraculous. While I could admire the Empire's ability to do such a thing, that didn't mean that I wanted to pony up the cash required to reproduce it. I'd rather just keep things simple to begin with.

Lergen sighed. "I'm afraid that's a battle that can only be fought, and never truly won."

"We'll have to do our best," I replied. I stood, lacing my fingers together as I stretched my arms out. It had been a long morning. It was about time for lunch, which would be followed by the larger meeting. I put my hands on my hips and turned far enough to pop my back. Even if the work wasn't physically taxing, the responsibility for protecting the whole country weighed heavily on my mind.

At full stretch, I could see General Lergen packing up. I cocked my head as a thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Do you ever miss the Emperor?"

Lergen stiffened slightly, pausing in his packing. He reached up to fiddle with his glasses for a moment in thought before he spoke.

Honestly, he wasn't much involved with running the Empire."

"Yeah. I guess I just miss the idea of the Emperor, sometimes," I said. "You know, the idea that there's somebody up above everything with the best interests of the nation at heart."

I worried, sometimes, about the lack of checks and balances in the Germanian political system. If somebody came up behind me with a solid majority backing their actions, they'd pretty much be able to do whatever they wanted. The closest thing the country had to an independent institution was the military. I respected our generals, I really did, but they weren't exactly a stalwart force for peace.

In the Empire, by contrast, there was always a sort of push and pull between the Emperor, the aristocracy, and the military. It wasn't a particularly democratic system, and the military probably won more of those tug of wars than it lost, but the existence of multiple power blocks had created a sense of stability.

"I believe President Rudersdorf is well positioned for such things," Lergen replied.

"Sure. He could be voted out if he tried to stand against the passionate mob, though," I said, then shrugged. "Well, I shouldn't waste time on nostalgia. Let's get going."

Lunch was fine. The meeting after lunch also went more or less as expected.

I could tell that the generals and admirals were a bit disappointed with the level of funding being proposed. With the end of the Treaty of Triano's restrictions, it was only natural to feel like the Imperial days were back again. Unfortunately, just because our enemies were no longer restricting our military spending didn't mean we could spend whatever we wanted. The government's balance sheet was actually pretty decent-expenditures had been cut to the bone during the hyperinflation-but that was no excuse for irresponsible spending. In the end, everybody just had to accept that our country was smaller than it used to be, leading to a corresponding reduction in size of its standing army.

The only real pushback on military policy came from the navy. In the end, I don't think they believed in my prediction of the importance of air power to future naval battles or of the nearing obsolescence of ship to ship guns. However, they did believe that I was unwilling to release a pfennig toward the construction of a cruiser or battleship.

They could figure out how to sink capital ships with torpedoes and airplanes, or the navy could operate as a glorified coast guard. Either one was fine with me.

At the end of the meeting we had reached a consensus on the broad outlines of Germania's strategic posture, at least for the next year. It was up to the General Staff to fill in the details and develop a concrete plan of action.

ooOoo

Later that week, it was my great pleasure to appoint Mattheus Weiss to the position of commander of the aerial mage group in the new air force, reinstating him to the military and promoting him to the rank of general. He had more than earned it. During the war he had proven his personal capabilities many times over, both in terms of his combat prowess and in his ability to command. After the war he had shown tremendous dedication, continuing to hone his abilities even after being let go from the military with no realistic prospect of rejoining.

On a more personal level, I was happy to have him in place so that he could resume his old role from our time in the 203rd: being delegated all of the aerial mage related tasks that I didn't want to deal with. He was still responsible for supervising Dr. Schugel, of course. He was also responsible for rebuilding the country's aerial mage combat force. It was an enormous undertaking, from recruitment to the construction of computation orbs to training.

He did have the advantage of having the mages from our security auxiliary at his disposal. Well, most of them. I had requisitioned a few for my security detail. It was a bit silly, having guards who would require guarding if I was ever attacked. At least with an aerial mage cohort as my bodyguard I could focus on saving myself if something went wrong.

I also requisitioned a company of mages from the air force to accompany a diplomatic delegation to the Akitsukushima Dominion. Also accompanying the diplomats would be a team of ship designers. I hoped they could negotiate access to the Akitsukushiman aircraft carriers in order to give us a leg up on designing our own. I wasn't sure exactly what they would want in return, but I figured a company of aerial mage volunteers would be appreciated. And, of course, killing commies was always its own reward.

Other than that, things were relatively uneventful for a while. I had a thousand and one things to do to keep me busy, of course, but nothing went horribly wrong. The economy even showed some signs of true recovery as the months passed. Removing both the shadow of prospective war and the need to pay reparations had given the whole country a sense of optimism.

One interesting bit of trivia was brought to my attention by the finance minister: while the price of coal had dropped noticeably thanks to increased production, the value of our currency had hardly moved. If the trend continued we would find ourselves with a de facto fiat currency. That opened up some interesting possibilities. Not that I wanted to raise the specter of hyperinflation by dramatically weakening the new mark, but it was always nice to have more choices.

I did make the time to make the occasional policy move aimed at alienating our coalition partners. My most dramatic move, though, I kept under wraps for now. The funding for the People's Car project came from a fund dedicated to the promotion of the use of highways. The whole project wasn't exactly up to the standards of military secrecy, but I made sure the initial factory was built in a remote area and did my best to keep it quiet.

The more time the program had to develop, the more attached my party would be to its continued existence. The closer to election time that the program was revealed, the less time our coalition partners would have to get over their anger.

A little more than six months had passed when Anton Ehrlich reached out and let me know that he had finished his proof of concept prototype. I was curious to see how his People's Car had developed, so I decided to drop by to take a look.

The ability to use a computation orb out in the open made it a quick jaunt out to visit the plant. It was located a little ways east of Berun, in a small village next to a small river in an area best described as "sleepy." It was a cold day in the middle of January, but that sort of thing was no real problem for any halfway competent mage.

Ehrlich was waiting for me when I touched down. He was bundled up against the weather and didn't waste any time ushering me inside. The factory had that impressive appearance that came along with a lot of brand new machinery being packed into one place, though a closer look showed that it was something like halfway operational. Ehrlich shed his coat before leading me further inside. The building's interior was well heated by the operational portions of the factory.

It didn't take long before we reached the cleared area of the factory floor that served as a stage for Ehrlich's baby. It was, well, it was a car, all right.

Most of the cars that I had seen since I'd been reborn into the Empire had a certain level of panache. Long, swooping lines, more than a little bit of art deco flair, and aggressive styling were all common. They might not have had the technical sophistication of the modern cars from my previous life, but at least they looked good.

Ehrlich had decided to away from that trend. Where most cars housed their engines in an impressive prow that thrust forth to cut through the air, his brainchild had a nose like a boxer that had gone one too many rounds in far too many fights. The whole thing was oddly bulbous. Curved, but not the sleek curves of a sports car. Rather, if I had to say that he had taken design inspiration from anywhere, I would say he decided to make an igloo out of metal and put it on wheels.

I kept my expression neutral and held my tongue as I walked a slow circle around the prototype. I held out hope that I might find a flattering angle, but I had to give that up as I found myself returning to Ehrlich's side.

"It's certainly unique," I said. "How did you come up with the design?"

"It was carefully crafted after painstaking work in a wind tunnel," he said.

"So you can't change anything about it?"

"Why would you?" he asked. "It's perfect!"

So much for that idea. Well, at least I wouldn't have to worry about any problems arising from selling too many of the things.

I carefully held in a sigh. "You said this is a functional prototype?"

Ehrlich nodded, before climbing inside the car. I felt a little bit of hope blossoming as he turned the key. People would forgive design flaws as long as the car's performance was good. That hope started to wither as the car started up with a sound better described as a putter than a roar.

He stepped out of the car, leaving it in idle, then moved around to the back for some reason. I followed him, so I was in position to be surprised by the appearance of a small engine as he threw open what I had expected to be the trunk.

"Don't most cars have the engine in the front?" I asked.

"Most cars are designed by plodding mediocrities," Ehrlich said. "Time will show the genius of my design."

Now, I was no expert on the automobile, but I knew that in the future cars were built with their engines in the front. Surely somebody must have experimented with rear engines at some point. The market had then judged such designs and apparently found them wanting. This whole project was looking like more of a turkey by the minute.

Looking at the undersized engine, another concern started worming through my mind. "Can this thing actually reach 100 kilometers per hour?"

"Of course," Ehrlich said, "although it needs a bit of space. If you have the time we can head to the autobahn ten miles south of here to use an appropriate straightaway."

I cast my mind back to the landscape I had seen on my way in. "Isn't that downhill?"

"It felt level to me," he replied.

"Did the car hit 100 kilometers per hour on the way back?" I asked.

"We're not done with all of the testing yet," Ehrlich said, before pausing to clear his throat. "This engine is air cooled and makes twenty six horsepower. I did consider using a water cooled engine that makes forty horsepower."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

"It adds a little bit to the cost, and it could hurt reliability unless it's properly maintained," Ehrlich said. "I could rebuild the prototype with the bigger engine."

That sounded like absolutely the last thing this car needed. It was already slow and ugly. At least if it was cheap we could sell some of them. The more reliable the car, the less likely those purchasers would come to hate it.

"No. No, think about the target market," I said. "Expensive or complicated maintenance is no good."

He nodded in acceptance before closing up the back, walking around, and turning off the car. At least the door made a nice solid thunk as he slammed it shut.

"The factory is coming along nicely," Ehrlich said, "though my projections show it would be much easier to hit the target price if I could negotiate the worker's compensation."

The overall structure of the People's Car project was, I thought, reasonably fair. Twenty percent of the stock had been given to Ehrlich and to a plant manager who had been recommended to me by Paul Däumler, to be distributed among the management team as they saw fit. Thirty-one percent had been reserved for the workers. Forty-nine percent was held by the government. However, until the money the government had invested in the project had been paid back, no dividends could be issued and none of the privately-held stock could vote.

As a result, I had the final say on every decision, although I left the day to day management to the professionals. Ordinarily with that kind of structure I would worry that the managers would try to carve out sinecures for themselves, but the plant manager's reputation for integrity was impeccable and Ehrlich had the drive of a fanatic. Instead, the only ongoing headache as far as corporate governance went were Ehrlich's continual efforts to chip away at the workers' pay.

"Absolutely not," I said.

A steady stream of good-paying jobs and cheap cars were required in order for this project to develop a political constituency. The appeal of the car certainly wasn't going to be enough. Besides, I thought the single-minded focus on reducing wages was short-sighted from a corporate point of view. When I worked in HR, I never hesitated to fire malingerers, but I never begrudged the pay given to good workers.

"Even if I were to allow it, there's a limit to how low you can drive their pay. There's no limit to human productivity," I said. "The amount you pay your workers is fixed. The value of the work is up to you."

He didn't seem entirely convinced by the argument, but I at least managed to convince him that I wouldn't be moved. All in all, I couldn't say whether the project would be successful in its stated goal of promoting motoring, but I was satisfied that I had achieved my personal goal of acquiring a weapon to use to destroy my political coalition.

ooOoo

Another, more exciting, project came to fruition a couple of weeks later when it came time for the demonstration of the competing attempts to satisfy the army's requirements for an assault rifle. The event was held in a military facility on the outskirts of Berun, and attracted quite a few movers and shakers. Most of the army's higher ups were in attendance, as were the executives of the firearms companies. The idea that the army might select a new rifle as its primary infantry weapon was enough to catch anybody's eye.

I sat on a grandstand together with Visha and General Lergen. The crowd had fallen silent when we'd arrived, but by the time we took our seats the buzz of normal conversation had resumed.

"The army has been doing some test exercises based on the proposed specifications," General Lergen said. "They see a lot of potential in the assault rifle concept."

He sounded more resigned than excited. Naturally, it was easy to make any weapon look good in an exercise based on hypothetical specs. The true value of the assault rifle wouldn't be revealed until they could run tests with the real thing.

I nodded absently. I had my own reasons to look forward to this demonstration.

Although my high-handed approach to the military had caused some resignations, the dissident military leaders didn't seem to be getting much political traction. I couldn't say precisely without the benefit of political polling, but that was my gut feeling. I could only speculate as to the reason for their troubles.

One obstacle that I thought they were probably facing was my own reputation with the military, which should be at least somewhat positive. If the soldiers by and large had some affection for me, then it would naturally be hard to get people riled up over my undue level of influence over the army.

I didn't want to go too far and trigger a revolt, but I thought it shouldn't be too hard to erode any positive feelings the army felt for me. I should already have a bit of a reputation as a swaggering martinet who made unreasonable demands of the people around her. All I had to do was reinforce that perception. After all, nobody likes an outsider telling them how to do their own job.

The base commander introduced the sergeant who would be conducting the tests, having been chosen for his sharpshooting prowess. He then introduced each of the prototypes in turn. To my eye, they were quite similar to each other and quite similar to the AK-47 that had inspired me to issue this request in the first place. They all had the distinctive banana shaped front magazine, and the overall length of each rifle was quite similar.

The prototypes proved similar in testing as well. All of them were easily capable of hitting a man sized target at 300 meters. The tester did an additional round at 400 meters without any trouble. He then tested out the automatic fire modes. Even knowing what was possible, it was impressive to see the same weapons that had managed such accurate shooting unleash a storm of bullets on demand.

From the murmurs of the crowd, the observing generals could see the potential in the new weapon. Even General Lergen had a certain eagerness in his eyes.

"I wonder if I might try out these wonderful designs," I called out, shamelessly abusing my position.

There was a little bit of back and forth, but naturally in the end the answer was yes. I made my way down the grandstand and towards the firing range while the good sergeant reloaded the prototypes. Meanwhile, Visha disappeared off towards one of the military storage units off to the side that we had requisitioned earlier. A moment later she reappeared, towing a cart that would ordinarily be pulled by a horse rather than a young woman.

Magic was handy sometimes.

I ignored the surprised comments from the crowd and focused on the supplies Visha had brought me. Finding the crate I was looking for, I tore off the front panel, revealing a sleeping pig. Drawing further on the Type 97, I gripped the pig by its forelegs and pulled it free to slam into the ground. The rough treatment roused the pig somewhat, although the cocktail of drugs in its system prevented it from getting to its feet. Well, I'd try to do this humanely.

While I was working through spell formulae in my head, Visha had grabbed a water barrel that was nearly her size and begun walking it over to where the prototypes were waiting. There were four more barrels on the cart and about forty feet between the cart and the firing position, so she'd left herself quite a bit of work to do.

I stopped paying any attention to what she was doing as I finished the necessary mental math. I needed to put all my focus on double-checking my work. Failure in front of all of those people would be unbearably humiliating. After the third time I'd checked over everything without spotting any mistakes, I shrugged and pulled the mental trigger.

It's possible to make a mage blade that's not attached to a mage. The power requirement goes up the farther the blade gets from your body, and the math gets trickier as well, but it's not impossible. It's just that for most purposes a bullet, or a spell attached to a bullet, is more effective. Mages, generally speaking, don't swoop through the battlefield surrounded by invisible blenders only because it's impractical.

In a calm environment I could afford to get a little fancy. Even incorporating a shield effect into the spell only pushed me to my limits, rather than beyond them.

When I activated the spell, there was a brief, alarmed squeal followed by what I could only describe as a pigsplosion. The pig's body was thoroughly mulched, the resulting mess splashing up to reveal the dome shaped shield I'd put over the whole thing before falling to the ground. I lowered the effect of the mage blades until the ground had been churned up into a slurry.

Releasing the spell allowed the smell to spread. Churned earth, fresh blood, the sewage-like tang of ruptured intestines, it all combined with the hint of cordite in the air from the earlier firing test to form a familiar perfume.

"Ah, that takes me back," I said, mostly to myself.

"I feel like there's something missing," Visha commented. She had paused next to me when I started the spell.

Looking down at the sludge, I couldn't help but agree that something was off. After a moment's thought, I remembered that the damp weather and poor drainage at the front meant that the artillery craters usually had puddles form on top of whatever else was in there.

I gestured to Visha and took the water barrel from her, pouring a generous measure on top of the pig's remains. I stopped and gave it back to her when there was an inch or so of standing water on top of the bloody mud. It looked right, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.

"Hmm, I think you're right," I admitted.

"Ah," Visha exclaimed, sounding cheerful, "it needs time to rot."

"Yes, that's it," I said. She'd hit the nail on the head. The smell of fresh remains was just too clean. "Well, a test will always fall short of the real thing."

This time I followed behind her and gathered up the prototypes as she put the last barrel in position. Walking back over to the puddle I'd created, I tossed each rifle one by one to sink beneath the water and the mud.

The observers had been watching silently for a while, but my casual mistreatment of their prototypes sparked a murmur of protest.

"Let me remind you that you were not commissioned to build a museum display piece. You were not asked to build an ideal target shooting rifle," I said, addressing the manufacturing representatives. "You were asked to build a soldier's weapon."

I gestured at the puddle.

"The soldier lives in the blood and the mud and the filth of the front lines. He cherishes his weapon, yes, but the circumstances constrain his ability to take care of it," I said. "After he crawls hundreds of feet through a storm of artillery shells in order to bring his rifle to bear on the enemy, the average soldier is not particularly concerned about shot groupings. He is worried about one thing: will it shoot?"

With that, I fished one of the prototypes out of the mud and headed back to the firing position. I dunked it into one of the barrels and moved it around a bit to wash the mud off, then pulled it out and let the water drain. Taking aim at the target, I pulled the trigger. The rifle fired well enough, but it stuck in the open position. I was able to cycle it manually, take aim, and fire again. After working through ten rounds that way, I set it aside.

The next two rifles each failed to fire entirely when given the same treatment. The final rifle had to be manually cycled several times but then was able to fire in semi-automatic fashion without any special treatment. I set it together with the first, then turned to address the audience.

"Of course, on the battlefield, you have to anticipate a certain amount of jostling around," I said.

The firing range was set up with a bench that could be used for more precise shooting. I took each rifle in turn, gripped it by the stock, and gave the bench a few good whacks with the magazine. This time, both of the rifles required a manual cycle between each shot.

Finished with my demonstration, I turned again to address the crowd.

"The rifle that wins this competition will be used against the enemies of the fatherland wherever they may be. In the freezing cold of winter and the sweltering heat of summer, our soldiers will rely on this rifle," I said. "Go, and in the next round of testing, bring me a weapon worthy of becoming the strong right arm of Germania!"

Perhaps my abusive behavior and unreasonable requirements could inspire the designers to new heights. I hoped so, for the army's sake. I was confident, though, that I had at least managed to take the shine off of my own reputation.

ooOoo


	18. Chapter 18

_AN: The Youjo Senki anime has a surprisingly high ratio of meetings to magical combat scenes, if you think about it._

ooOoo

I hardly considered myself an expert on naval construction. I had only insisted that the Navy's chosen designs be run past me for final approval because I was a little worried that some mad scientist in the design department would come up with a massive albatross of a blueprint. Building a fleet was so expensive that one bad ship design could trouble the whole country's budget for years.

I hadn't intended to make any comments on ship construction, other than vetoing anything that looked too crazy. I just wasn't qualified. On the other hand, I was something of an expert on the subject of attacking ships from the air.

I looked from the blueprint on the table, up to Admiral Beyer, then back down at the blueprint. Visha and General Lergen sat by my side at the conference table. Finally, I gave in and voiced the question that had been bothering me since the Admiral started explaining the design for the new destroyer.

"Could it carry more guns?"

It was his turn to look at the blueprint for a moment. "Chancellor, there does need to be space on board for the men who sail the ship."

That was a fair point. Honestly, with ten 37 millimeter guns and sixteen 20 millimeter guns, the planned destroyer would already be carrying far more anti-aircraft firepower than, for example, the Empire's battleships. They wouldn't be a target that I would approach lightly, even with an experienced mage company at my back.

Even so, it could be a little bit better. A target to avoid, not just a target to be careful with.

"The main guns," I said, tapping the section of the blueprint depicting the pair of five inch guns mounted in the forward turret, "could they be mounted so as to be capable of anti-air fire?"

"Perhaps," the admiral replied, "although there are usually trade offs for such changes. I'm not sure it would be worth it."

The other option to improve aerial defenses would be to station mages on the ship. The problem with that was twofold. First, aerial mages and anti-aircraft guns were difficult to coordinate. Since charging into the fray was liable to get you shot by your own side, mages positioned on defense would have to wait to attack until after the enemy had already overcome the anti-aircraft fire. Second, aerial mages were just too useful for too many things. If spending a little extra money in ship building freed up marine mages for other uses, I thought it was worth the effort.

I looked over at Visha to get her opinion.

"I think I wouldn't like to assault the ship as it's designed," Visha said. "But if I wanted to fend off a company led by the Chancellor, I'd want the big gun too."

"I'll see what I can do," the admiral said, taking a few notes.

General Lergen didn't have anything to say other than praise for the designers. Really, they had done a good job. The ship as designed was a sort of jumbo destroyer, reasonably nimble and quick while weighing in around 3,000 long tons. It was well suited as a platform for whatever ship-to-ship weapons the research and development team developed. The ship wouldn't be anything truly special unless R&D really outdid themselves, but Germania didn't need a special navy.

With that out of the way, the next ship on the agenda was the proposed aircraft carrier. There, I didn't have anything to add. The plan was to build a scaled up version of the Akitsukushiman aircraft carrier that our team had been allowed to examine, incorporating a few changes to address problems that the Akitsukushiman sailors had shared during unguarded conversations. To hear Admiral Breyer tell it, the design department was chomping at the bit to try out some wild ideas, but he had shut them down in favor of getting the country a functioning aircraft carrier as soon as possible, if only to ensure that the fleet had a flagship.

Once the first carrier was done, though, I could expect to see some ambitious proposals for carrier number two. I honestly didn't mind too much. A navy consumed with pie-in-the-sky dreaming was a navy the Allied Kingdom would find less threatening. And, who knows, they might come up with a useful idea or two.

"That brings us to the new submarine," Admiral Breyer said, then paused. "There are two designs under consideration."

"Oh?" I asked. I was a little surprised. I had expected to be presented with simple yes and no decisions, for the most part.

"One design is an incremental improvement on the diesel electric models developed by the Empire. It should make 18 knots surfaced and 8 knots submerged, with a corresponding improvement in range and running time when submerged compared to previous models," he said, indicating one of the blueprints, before pushing the other forward. "The other design uses a new propulsion system and should be capable of traveling at over 20 knots when submerged."

A two and a half times increase in speed was more than a new propulsion system, it was a miracle. I tried to think back to anything I knew about modern submarines. Didn't most of them run on nuclear power? I was going to be very upset if the Empire had a whole nuclear program that nobody bothered to tell me about.

"A new propulsion system?" I asked.

"By using a high concentration solution of hydrogen peroxide," he said, "vigorous combustion can take place without using up the ship's oxygen."

Well, at least it wasn't nuclear. Although, the more I thought about it, the less comfortable I was with the idea of vigorous combustion that didn't require oxygen. Wasn't that another way of saying you couldn't even smother out that kind of fire? I thought that kind of thing happened with rocket fuel, not a submarine's engine.

"That sounds dangerous," Visha said, echoing my thoughts.

"As long as the fuel is handled properly, it should be perfectly safe," the admiral replied.

He sounded surprisingly invested in the idea of a rocket-powered submarine. Well, why not? I wouldn't have to ride in the thing. From a larger perspective, it was safer for the navy to be messing around with a single dangerous prototype than to be in possession of a submarine fleet that other countries might find threatening.

"We aren't building many submarines, so we might as well make them fast," I said. "Although that kind of propulsion system seems better suited to a torpedo, to be honest."

"We've asked the inventor to contribute to our torpedo development initiative. He should be able to work on both projects at the same time," Admiral Beyer said. "Chancellor... are you sure we shouldn't also build out more of the ordinary submarines? The Allied Kingdom is dependent on merchant shipping. The only way we can threaten them is with a substantial submarine fleet."

"To put a scare into the Allied Kingdom would require more submarines than our treaty allows," I said. "Really, though, the treaty is beside the point. So is their fleet."

I needed to nip this sort of thinking in the bud. While the Empire had been qualified to call itself the Allied Kingdom's opponent, the new Germania was far from ready for a war with them, no matter how we allocated our naval budget.

"The fundamental problem is that the Allied Kingdom's economy is more powerful than ours. They are larger overall, and richer on a per person basis. Given the time to employ that economic, industrial strength, they will win any war they are involved in," I said. "Deploying an all-submarine fleet would delay the result, but it would not allow for victory any more than the Francois could have kept the Empire out of Parisee by guerilla warfare."

The cold hard fact is that the nation that adopts asymmetric warfare strategies has implicitly admitted that it was too weak to match up directly against its opponents. That sort of strategy might convince the opponent to give up if they weren't truly invested in the fight, but in a war for survival it was a sure recipe for defeat.

"Only a nation whose economy is on par with the Allied Kingdom, a nation that can build a mighty surface navy, is truly qualified to go toe to toe with the Allied Kingdom in the water," I said. "Putting your hope in some miracle of asymmetric warfare is just fooling yourself."

We might bluff and bluster a bit in order to keep their diplomats from taking flagrant advantage of us, but the bottom line was that any alternative was better for us than a war against the Allied Kingdom. The only reasonable way forward was for us to pursue peace at all costs.

I couldn't openly encourage such a defeatist attitude, but anybody who rose to the top in the military had to be pretty sharp. Admiral Beyer should be able to read between the lines and understand what I was saying.

ooOoo

The next day's military review felt a little less formal, as now-General Mattheus Weiss was going to be showing off Dr. Schugel's latest invention as well as giving us a status update. Only the presence of General Lergen in the conference room kept it from being a completely relaxing reunion of fellow 203rd veterans.

"How's staff work treating you?" I asked.

"It has been going well so far," Weiss replied. "It's still a little strange to wear a uniform every day and not get shot at."

"I could come to your next training exercise," I volunteered. It would be nice to have an excuse to get out of the office.

"I wouldn't want to impose," Weiss said, clearing his throat before shuffling through the stack of paperwork in front of him. "Anyways, the cadets are coming along according to schedule. We'll be starting them on the dual core orbs next week, which should be interesting."

The final organization of the aerial mage corps, not to mention the air force as a whole, was somewhat up in the air. At the very least, the corps would serve as a centralized training facility and equipment procurement center, ensuring that all of the Empire's aerial mages were up to snuff. The issue was what would happen to the aerial mages once they'd been trained.

Generally speaking, aerial mages didn't act on their own. They instead worked together with other branches of the service. For example, marine mages performed their duties of reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare in partnership with the navy, while the 203rd had frequently worked together with the army in holding the line on the Rhine front. In complicated operations like the assault on Osfjord, we had worked together with the navy, army, and friendly aircraft all at once.

I suspected that the military would eventually settle on assigning marine mages to the navy permanently, as they could be expected to work together with the same ship for extended deployments. Cooperation with the army would be more ad hoc, logically handled by keeping aerial mages as a separate organization doling out support missions on request. I didn't want to simply dictate the solution, though. For one thing, the professionals who made a career out of organizing the military bureaucracy might have a better idea than me of how to go about it. It wasn't like I could draw on any future knowledge of military deployment of magic. Also, whatever the final organization turned out to be, the military would more readily accept it if it were the result of normal bureaucratic infighting rather than a political dictate.

Of course, I would have Weiss's back if the other branches of the military got too rough with him. He hadn't asked me for any help, though, which was in line with my expectations. After all, if he came to rely too much on that kind of support then he could find himself in real trouble if I were voted out of office.

The real fight would be in the future, anyways. Right now, Weiss's only real fighting power were the 203rd veterans who would naturally prefer to report to him. They were working to bring along the first aerial mage cadet class of the Republic of Germania, one hundred volunteers strong. The flight training was a one year program, to be followed by one year of officer training for the cadets who chose that path.

Ultimately, I was hoping to have a standing mage force of three or four hundred people. A far cry from the legions of mages that the Empire had maintained, but still an ambitious goal considering our reduced population and the fact that I had ruled out conscription for the time being. I had also raised the minimum age of combat mages to match the rest of our armed forces. Really, allowing underage mages to serve was a move of desperation. It might provide a temporary boost to our numbers, but we would just be robbing from future recruiting classes.

For the moment, we had more volunteers than we could handle. The one hundred recruits in training were just about as many as we could manage at once. Time would tell if that enthusiasm would last past the initial flush of excitement over the country rebuilding its aerial mage corps.

"Are there enough dual core orbs to go around?" Visha asked.

"The cadets don't each need their own orb for training. By the time they graduate, we should have one for each of them," Weiss said. "We've been able to increase production a decent amount now that we can be open about hiring and such."

He glanced at General Lergen as he spoke. Lergen, for his part, just nodded in understanding. He had never been the type of superior who meddled with what his underlings were doing. I had always appreciated that about him. I was willing to bet that he was as happy as I was to see that Weiss had a handle on the logistical side of things.

"These orbs would be Type-97s, right?" I asked.

"Yes. Dr. Schugel is still working on the successor," Weiss said, before reaching into his pocket and laying a small device on the table. "Although he did make this."

I had come to expect a certain level of spit and polish on a finished computation orb. The device Weiss had produced didn't quite measure up. It was rectangular, made of dull steel, and roughly the size and shape of a soldier's dog tag, albeit a dog tag the thickness of my little finger.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A new computation orb. We're calling it the Elenium Model H-7," Weiss said. "It's more of a proof of concept than a real weapon system."

"That sounds like Dr. Schugel, all right," I said. "So, what does it do?"

"Automatic stealth casting," he said. "It grabs any waste mana and puts it toward body reinforcement instead of allowing the energy to dissipate."

"Impressive," I said. "What's the catch?"

Automating stealth casting would greatly expand our ability to take advantage of the technique. But I couldn't forget that this was a prototype from Dr. Schugel, a man who didn't believe in safety measures. I'd count myself lucky if the thing didn't explode from overuse.

"The efficiency is bad," Weiss said. "Maybe half the effect that a skilled user of the Junghans can get for the same mana investment. The actual body reinforcement with the waste mana is also minimal."

That wasn't too bad. An A or B-ranked mage using the low power magic that the Junghans could handle wouldn't really notice an extra fifty or even hundred percent mana cost for spells of that level.

"What about B-rank spells?" Visha asked. "Will it let you fly?"

She sounded excited at the idea of stealthy flight. I couldn't blame her.

"The efficiency loss scales up rapidly with the complexity of the spell," Weiss said. "It might be possible to fly with this thing, but you'd burn it out pretty quick."

"Still, it's quite the achievement," I said.

From a technical perspective, it was obviously a major advance. I couldn't begin to imagine how he had done it. It was also a major practical leap in utility. Using stealth casting on the battlefield could be quite useful, but battlefield conditions weren't really conducive to calm and technically perfect spell formation.

Weiss nodded. "Dr. Schugel intends to incorporate the ability as an option in his next-generation orb."

Dr. Schugel had promised a lot of features for his next magnum opus. The project had started as a simple upgrade of the Type 97. Once he got his hands on the captured Francois orbs his aspirations for the new orb had shot through the roof. Now he was adding automated stealth casting as well. I could only hope that he wasn't biting off more than he could chew.

"How's that going?" I asked.

"It's been two weeks since the last explosion," Weiss said. "Dr. Schugel says you can't rush genius."

That did sound like Dr. Schugel. On the other hand, just because the next dual core orb was a long way away didn't mean we should just ignore the possibility this new development presented.

I reached across the table and picked up the H-7. It really didn't look like a computation orb. Turning it over in my hand, it didn't feel like a computation orb either.

"Do you have time for a little side project?"

"Ah, well-" Weiss said, before I interrupted him.

"Good, good," I said. I knew from long experience supervising Mattheus Weiss that anything but an immediate and unequivocal no meant that I could browbeat him into taking on a task. "I want you to recruit a small cadre of C-ranked mages and train them up on this thing."

I held the H-7 up on display. He looked at it for a long moment, lost in thought.

"Basic training would only take a few weeks," he said. "but they wouldn't be close to real combat mages. Even just keeping up a minor reflex enhancement... you'd be talking about minutes per day."

"Not combat mages... but I bet General Lergen could find something to do with soldiers who can use little bursts of magic," I said. "Whether as infantry, pilots, or gunners."

Aerial mages were able to use magical enhancement to cause absurd levels of damage relative to their numbers. But, really, the ability to fly and use constant physical and mental enhancements and keep up shields, taken together it was a little excessive. Giving an average soldier a few seconds of enhanced reflexes on command should be useful on its own.

"It would open up some interesting possibilities," General Lergen said.

"I see," Weiss said. "Well, there's enough C-ranked mages running around that I should be able to find some, even limiting it to military age volunteers."

That was good to hear. While things had been going well for the last little while, our country was still in a precarious position. We couldn't afford to ignore any opportunity to procure a new ace in the hole.

ooOoo

There was one other aerial mage project that was not operating under Weiss's supervision. Koenig had been given command of a group of twelve men and sent out to cause problems for the Russite forces in the far east. He had succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. Just the intelligence he gathered alone made the trip worthwhile.

The most surprising piece of information was that the Russite army operated entirely without aerial mages. I had read Secretary Jughashvili's speeches denouncing combat mages as tools of international capitalist repression, of course, but I also knew that communists habitually lied about their internal governance. I didn't expect that they would follow through and weaken their own military so badly. Of course, the real reason was likely the party's fear of decentralized power rather than ideological purity, but it was still a surprise.

Since they couldn't meet mage with mage, the Russite doctrine focused on early detection and massed firepower. Against Koenig and his highly mobile, stealth-capable company of mages, they might as well have been trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer. While Koenig couldn't face down their main force directly, he was able to wreak havoc around the edges.

The second bit of intelligence was less heartening. The Russy Federation was moving out in force for this war. The sheer volume of men, planes, tanks, and artillery that they were shipping east was almost certain to push the Akitsukushiman army out of the territory they had gained in the Russo-Akitsukushiman war. If they wanted, they could likely drive Akitsukushima off the mainland entirely.

Koenig did what he could around the edges. While he didn't have enough men to materially affect the course of the war, the Akitsukushimans seemed pleased with his efforts. I had also agreed to give them one of our two remaining captured Francois computation orbs. Dr. Schugel had already taken it apart and documented everything of value before putting it back together, so it didn't cost us much to hand it over. In return, we were allowed a much closer look at carrier operations than we otherwise would have gotten, as well as given a demonstration of their new air-dropped torpedoes.

The Akitsukushimans also worked with us to make sure that when our naval analysts came back to Germania, they brought a present along with them: a nearly intact Russite tank, one of several disabled by Keunig and his team on the battlefield. Analyzing the tank pushed back our own rearmament a bit. Naturally, our new anti-tank guns had to be able to take out the mainstay of the Russite forces, and our new tank at least had to be capable of being fitted out with a gun that could threaten their opposing number.

Such merely technical problems couldn't keep the Germanian military down for long, though. Soon enough we were producing all the accouterments of a modern military. Tanks, planes, and guns big and small were all rolling off the assembly lines. The demonstration of the final model of the assault rifle, in particular, was endearingly thorough.

All of this production was taking place at a measured pace. We were only aiming to match the combat power of the Francois army, after all. For their part, the Francois army was frozen at the size it had been during the Duisbusch incident. This wasn't the result of any particular military policy but more the result of a lack of military policy. Francois politics were in even more turmoil than the early days of the Germanian Republic. They were unanimous in their dislike of Germania and their hatred of me, of course, but there were severe differences in opinion as to what to do about it. As a result, they had stopped the previously ongoing reduction in size of their army, but had not yet committed to any kind of rearmament program.

All in all, things were going well. This level of military spending was reasonably sustainable. Also, spending on domestic military production, unlike reparations payments, at least kept the money in the local economy. Not that any nation could sustain itself solely on the back of the military-industrial complex, but it was some comfort to think that our military spending wasn't just a dead weight on the economy.

I was feeling pretty content about the state of the country. My largest day to day worry was whether I had done enough to break apart my political coalition so as to ensure my own loss and a reasonable successor, but I knew that I should pace myself on that front. With over two years to go until the next elections, I needed to keep my powder dry. While I wasn't yet enjoying the quiet retirement that I wanted, everything seemed to be moving in the right direction.

Then Mr. Klohse, during a routine briefing on the workings of the Ministry of Finance, mentioned that the stock market in the Unified States had lost twenty-five percent of its value in less than a week.

The Great Depression! Unfortunately, Being X had not been kind enough to send along my college textbooks when he forcibly reincarnated me, so I couldn't recite chapter and verse of what was about to happen. But I remembered the basics. A stock market crash, followed by bank closures, deflation, tariffs, and grinding poverty. Most importantly, this was my free ticket out of the Chancellor's office!

It was a basic principle of democracy that the party in power got the blame when something went wrong. Anybody in office when the Great Depression hit would be turned out by the voters at the first opportunity. I did find it a little annoying that all of my work to break up my party had been rendered superfluous. Still, as long as I got to my destination in the end, I didn't mind taking a detour along the way.

Although, if the impact on the Germanian economy were too much, that could be a problem. I knew better than anybody what sort of craziness people would vote for in times of economic trouble.

I seemed to be the only person in the government who was alarmed about the situation. The consensus among my cabinet seemed to be that the Americans had, at worst, gone from being obscenely rich to being remarkably rich. While some American newspapers had taken to calling June 21, 1938 a "Black Tuesday," the American press was known for its sensationalism.

Thanks to the benefit of hindsight, I was less sanguine. Especially after I reached out to our ambassador and discovered that the lower house of Congress had already passed a far ranging tariff increase earlier in the year. It seemed I might not have as much time as I had thought if I wanted to get out in front of the coming tariffs.

Fortunately, as Chancellor I could meet with foreign diplomats without the approval of my cabinet. They might get restless if they felt like I was being too high handed with my foreign policy, but for me that was all to the good. Even so, it took a week before I could arrange a convenient time to meet with Mr. Johnson, the American ambassador.

I welcomed him into my conference room with a glass of water and a smile. As usual, we didn't waste much time on pleasantries.

"You have my sympathy for the recent stock market collapse," I said.

"Markets go up, markets go down," he said, shrugging. "It'll be back to normal soon enough."

It seemed my cabinet was not alone in its blase assessment of the situation.

"Perhaps," I said. "Just in case, though, I think it prudent to discuss our trade relationship."

"What about it?"

"I imagine you'd be interested in selling more wheat to Germania," I said.

The Unified States grew an enormous amount of wheat. Too much for their domestic market, so they were always interested in new opportunities for foreign sales. Germania had a tariff in place in order to protect domestic farmers, but even so the Unified States still exported a decent amount of wheat to us. After all, while Germania was technically capable of producing enough food to feed itself, the actual process of doing so involved eating a lot of K-brot. Much better to pay for foreign food, if possible.

"You're talking about lowering the tariff," Mr. Johnson said. "Can you do that on your own?"

"The law would have to be changed," I said, "but it's hardly worth the effort if you aren't interested."

Changing the law would also make for a handy wedge issue. The wealthy conservative coalition was a roughly even split between old money aristocrats, who dearly loved the wheat tariff, and wealthy industrialists, who hardly cared about it.

"Sure, I'm interested," he said. "But what would you want in return?"

"We export a fair amount of manufactured goods to the Unified States," I said. "I'd like to see that continue."

"The law doesn't give the President a lot of leeway to knock down tariffs," Mr. Johnson said.

"That's fine. While I'd appreciate anything he could do to help," I said, "my primary goal is to preserve the status quo. Preserve the current rates and the current freely tradeable items."

The tariff regime the Unified States had in place was relatively expensive but also relatively narrow. It also mostly applied to raw materials and industrial chemicals, as opposed to finished consumer products. Automobiles, for example, weren't subject to a tariff at all.

Germania, of course, was a world leader in the production of fancy, overpriced consumer products. The Unified States was a world leader in the production of rich people who wanted to buy fancy gewgaws. I hoped to get a treaty in place to preserve that natural relationship before the new tariffs came into force.

"You're worried about the tariff bill that just passed the House?" Johnson asked. "You know that won't take effect unless the Senate passes it, which they won't, and the President signs it, which he won't."

"I know what it's like when a country goes through hard times. People do things they never thought they would do," I said. "All I want to do is to secure a safe haven before the winds of change start to blow."

I did have an ulterior motive, of course. Even setting aside my hindsight-driven hunch that tariffs were coming, I was expecting to be driven from office soon. I had no guarantee that I would be replaced by somebody as clear eyed and rational as myself, so it was entirely possible that my successor wouldn't realize the futility of war with the Allied Kingdom or Unified States. Having a trade treaty in place with the Unified States, however tenuous its value, would help cement the friendly relations between our countries. It was no guarantee of peace, of course, but every little bit helped.

Besides, even if my future knowledge proved to be misleading, the worst case scenario was a flood of cheap American grain heading to Germania. Not the worst thing in the world. Honestly, if our farmers couldn't out compete Americans who had to pay their labor in dollars and then ship their food across an ocean, they only had themselves to blame.

Mr. Johnson gave me a long look. "I can't agree to something like this on my own. But I can run it up the chain. I expect they'll be interested."

As it turned out, they were interested. As well they should be, as they were very nearly getting something for nothing. Reaching a final agreement still took a while.

Getting the legislation authorizing me to negotiate away the tariffs through the Diet was a bit of an adventure. We had some defecting voters among the old money representatives. It wasn't enough to drop us below a majority, and it was more than made up for by the miscellaneous votes we picked up from the minority parties, but it was an encouraging sign of my coalition fraying around the edges.

With that done, it was up to me to hammer out a deal. There was the usual hemming and hawing, but we reached an agreement on the broad strokes a couple months after I had made the initial proposal, largely along the lines of my initial proposal. The only thing left to do was for me to make an official visit to the Unified States to hash out the last few details and hold a public signing ceremony.

With any luck, it should double as my farewell tour.

ooOoo

 _AN2: In 1937, an intrepid German citizen pitched the navy his idea for a rocket fuel powered submarine, and got a government contract. There's a reason Hollywood mad scientists all have German accents._

 _AN3: IRL Hoover's policy platform was in favor of reducing tariffs on industrial goods and increasing tariffs on agricultural products (politically speaking, the connection was that farmers needed to buy various machines in order to run their farms). Also, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs passed the House well before the stock market crash. It was expected that they wouldn't get through the Senate and that the President would veto if they did. As it happened the Senate passed a much more modest tariff bill five months after the crash, but in conference the "reconciled" bill was more or less identical to the House version. At that point the President signed the bill under political pressure from his own party. Note that in order for Tanya's plan to work the trade treaty needs to be approved by the Senate before the new tariffs hit._


	19. Chapter 19

_AN: Tanya von Degurechaff world tour '38 t-shirts will be on sale shortly._

ooOoo

Erich von Lergen stood silently on the train platform. Around him, the crowd was cheering wildly as their beloved Chancellor left on the first steps of her journey to America. The train would deliver her to the north coast of the country along with her entourage, where a ship was waiting for the five day journey to Washington. He didn't envy her the trip. Nor did he envy the Americans the prospect of negotiating with her. He did feel some quiet despair at the thought that it had become an ordinary thing for his country to be represented on the international stage by Tanya von Degurechaff.

Lergen stood silently as the crowds' enthusiasm reached a peak. He stood silently as the crowd dispersed. He stood silently as the station was filled with the hubbub of ordinary operations. Finally, he sighed, then turned to walk back towards the center of government in Berun.

He was halfway back to his office before he realized he would not be able to bottle up his feelings for the rest of the day. He needed a frank conversation with somebody he respected. A small change in his route brought him to the Ministry of the Interior. He paused for a moment outside of Hans von Zettour's office before he knocked on the door frame and stuck his head inside.

"Do you have a moment?"

"Of course, of course. I could use a break," Zettour said, inviting him in. "To be honest, I'm not sure I would have agreed to come out of retirement if I'd known it would be this much work."

Lergen shut the door behind him, glancing around the room to confirm that its dimensions were as he remembered them. Even so, he didn't relax until he shook hands with Zettour and felt the calluses and strong grip that age had not yet taken away. Lergen finally set himself down in the seat placed in front of Zettour's desk, unsure where to start.

The paperwork covering every square inch of the desk was testament to Zettour's workload. The sizable pile of papers accumulated in his outbox were a testament to his continued vitality and efficiency, even well past the ordinary age of retirement.

Lergen had, like Zettour, understood that the primary purpose of the older man's new job was to keep an eye on the Chancellor. He had therefore expected that she would do her best to sideline Zettour and shift his nominal duties to her trusted subordinates. Instead, she had welcomed Zettour into her inner circle and had even given him supervisory duties that went outside of his official remit.

Lergen still wasn't sure if the move was meant as an olive branch or if it was merely part of a long-reaching nefarious scheme.

Zettour was watching him from behind the desk with a patient expression on his face. Even after many years of working together, Lergen still felt like a schoolboy who had volunteered to visit the headmaster's office.

Eventually, he decided to begin with the obvious.

"We underestimated her," Lergen said.

"We certainly did," Zettour replied, smiling. "The Treaty of Triano is gone, our economy repaired, and we're even on friendly terms with the Americans."

Indeed, it was hard to argue with Degurechaff's record. Even Lergen might have found himself swayed into her political camp, if he weren't so acutely aware that the woman was a time bomb ticking away in the heart of the nation.

"You know what I mean," Lergen said.

The restraints they had so carefully put in place in order to curb the Chancellor's behavior lay in tatters. The men they had counted on to obstruct her agenda were now powerless or, worse, suborned into Degurechaff's cause.

"Yes, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for Becker and Vogel these days," Zettour said, chuckling.

Lergen had, like many Germanians, expected that Degurechaff would call for elections as soon as she returned from Londinium. She certainly would have received over fifty percent of the vote, freeing her party from the need to maintain a coalition in order to hold a majority. Instead, she had been content to rely on the latent threat of an election in order to push her legislative agenda.

It wasn't until he saw her plan in action that Lergen appreciated the insidious nature of her strategy. By keeping the government in place, the Germanian Nationalist Party was forced to vote as she wished in order to cling to any scrap of power. This, despite the fact that they would ordinarily be the most vocal critics of increases in the compensation offered for workplace accidents and increased scrutiny of workplace safety. Having voted for such measures, they could hardly raise a voice in protest as they went into effect. Even worse was the effect on their voters: the more militant members concluded that the party was ineffective and abandoned their support, while the less engaged voters concluded that if their party supported such measures, they must be a good idea.

By now, Andreas Becker and Klaus Vogel, the leaders of the party, were broken men. They'd be lucky to keep their seats in the next election. The lion's share of their voters would be siphoned off by Degurechaff's party, while the die hard remnant exiled itself to the powerless fringe. All they could do now was vote along with the chancellor and hope they might influence her decisions somehow. The vote on the wheat tariff had been the taste of the future: a break from the chancellor that accomplished nothing but to highlight their own irrelevance.

"Forget about Becker and Vogel, what about us?" Lergen asked. "Weren't we going to keep her on a short leash?"

"As I recall," Zettour said, steepling his fingers, "we were going to keep an eye on her and make sure she was acting in Germania's best interests."

Lergen felt a sinking feeling in his gut. He'd always known Zettour had a soft spot for Degurechaff. And, of course, the man had never objected to the Empire's hardline policies before or even during the Great War. Still, Lergen refused to believe that Zettour would approve of the ruin of the nation out of mere sentiment.

"Her ambitions obviously don't end with the repeal of the Treaty," Lergen said. All of Degurechaff's efforts so far had been aimed at nothing more than building up the power of the weapons she would wield in her attempts to rebuild the Empire.

Zettour held his gaze, unperturbed. "Do yours?"

Lergen found himself at a loss for words.

"At the end of the war, we were all shocked and dismayed. We retreated into ourselves and tried to hide from the world," Zettour said. "Honestly, now I'm finding myself relieved that at least one person has always maintained her unflinching attention on what the future holds."

Lergen couldn't help but wonder why he was the only person who saw the prospect of a second Great War as something to avoid.

ooOoo

Although I'd originally been born on an island nation, I'd never taken an extended journey by boat before. My overall evaluation was that I could hardly wait for the invention of a reliable passenger aircraft.

At least my cabin was nice. A Germanian company that ran enormous passenger liners on weekly voyages to and from America had agreed to provide VIP accommodations and to divert their usual trip to New Amsterdam to arrive instead at Washington, D.C., once they'd been told of the need. I appreciated the gesture, although I couldn't help but muse to myself that ideally I could have made it to the top in a nation that retained a jet airplane for its leader's personal use. Of course, such a country would have safeguards in place that would prevent a populist demagogue like me from taking the reins.

In any event, my sleeping quarters on the ship were far more luxurious than what I enjoyed in day to day life. The one policy that I shared with my predecessor showed in the relatively spartan layout of the Chancellor's residence. It was a place for work, not dynastic opulence. The VIP cabin on the ship, on the other hand, had been made for the kind of person with more money than sense.

The novelty of it did start to wear thin after the first day or so. After that, the sheer amount of time wasted in transit started to weigh on my mind.

I was accompanied on the journey by some diplomatic functionaries, Neumann, as my personal security, and Anna, one of Elya's assistants. Anna was a pleasant enough conversationalist and I had plenty of last minute diplomatic knowledge to absorb, but even so I was feeling stir crazy by the third day of the trip.

I finally changed into flying gear, grabbed Neumann shortly after lunch, and informed the rest of our party that we would be stretching our legs for a bit. Soon the two of us were hovering at six thousand meters. It was a calm, clear day. I could still make out the passenger liner down below, but not easily. It was amazing how small it looked from such a height.

All around us was nothing but sea and sky. I took a moment to spin in place, admiring the view. Then I caught Neumann's eye.

"Race you to the water."

"What?" he asked.

"If your hair gets wet you lose," I said, before spinning to face towards the ocean and accelerating.

I waited until Neumann was in motion and level with me before really pouring on the power. Fair's fair.

I had tucked my hair under my cap before taking off, so there was nothing obstructing my view as the ocean rushed ever closer. The safe play would have been to fly down feet first in order to provide for a margin of error, but this was more fun. Facing straight down also gave me the best possible view to judge my approach.

I waited until I thought it was probably time to slow down, then just half a breath longer. I could almost feel the Type 97 suddenly straining under the load as I slammed two spells through it at maximum power. One applied force directly upward, slowing my fall. The other reinforced my body so it could take the strain of the acceleration.

The interplay between the two spells produced an eerie feeling to which I had only grown accustomed through long exposure. The sensation of a crushing force inexplicably not crushing my body was still odd, but I shunted it to the back of my mind as the water drew even closer. I ended up stopping while still somewhat distant from the surface. Fortunately, a passing wave came through at enough height that I was able to reach out and slash my hand through it.

I spun upright to see Neumann still easing himself down to sea level. I huffed in displeasure as he finally slowed to a stop, kicking at the water.

"Coward."

"With you flying like that, I could only win if you got your hair wet," he said, before giving a mock shudder. "Besides, just watching you stop that quickly makes my spine ache."

"It's a perfectly safe combination of spells."

"Sure," he said, "that's why you've grown to such a remarkable height."

"Hmm, I didn't think you would volunteer for extra evasion training."

In the end, I went easy on him. I kind of had to, as I hadn't brought my rifle with me. Mostly, though, it was because the purpose of the flight was only recreational to begin with. Getting too serious would ruin the fun. I did make sure he got one dunking before we headed back to the ship, though.

As the ship drew closer to the Unified States, we couldn't freely mess around up in the air any more. Instead, I made more of an effort to mingle with the rest of the ship's passengers. It was strange to hear their stories. I had been conditioned in my previous life to think of a five day journey either being the result of a desire to emigrate to a new land or perhaps to make a vacation out of the trip itself, but in these times it was simply normal. Not to say that it was easy or cheap, but for people who wanted to visit far flung family members or who needed to travel on business, the need to budget a week or two for the journey was perfectly normal.

When we pulled in to the dock, it became clear to me that the famous American love of informality didn't interfere in any way with their love of spectacle. The pier was decked out in bunting, one side done up in red, white and blue while the other was black, red, and yellow. A row of police officers were holding back a crowd of people in order to keep a small area clear, and an honest to goodness brass band was playing as I stepped off the ship.

The President of the Unified States, Herman Hooper, was waiting at the bottom of the gangplank to shake my hand as I reached solid ground. The two of us smiled and waved for the cameras before heading for the waiting motorcade.

The passenger section of my car was, courteously enough, Germanian only. In addition to the people I had brought with me from home I was accompanied by Fritz Weber, our ambassador to the Unified States. The drive was short so he didn't have time to give more than a brief rundown of facts that I already knew. It was still reassuring to hear that nothing much had changed while I was in transit.

When we reached the White House I was pulled up to stand next to the president, doing my best to keep a pleasant smile on my face and ignore the flashbulbs as he gave a brief speech to the press corps. I was a bit surprised when he indicated that the both of us would take a few questions.

"Kat Williamson, New Amsterdam Times," was the introduction given by the first reporter he called on, a rather aggressive young woman. "Chancellor Degurechaff, what happened at Duisbusch?"

The president looked like he was going to shut down the question, but I waved him away. I was long prepared for this level of bullshitting. "Germanian agents are looking into the incident. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment while the investigation is ongoing."

She didn't look happy with the response, but President Hooper had moved on to another reporter.

"Matt Harper, St. Henry Tribune," wasn't quite as neatly put together as his competitor. "Chancellor Degurechaff, I've seen a draft of the treaty, and I have to ask: what's in it for Germania?"

A fair question, if you weren't anticipating that the current downturn would turn into a depression and trigger a worldwide wave of protectionism. I smiled and decided to give him an honest answer. "Peace of mind."

There was a brief burst of chatter before the president called on another reporter. Another woman. That made two out of three questions from the two women out of the fifteen or so reporters. I wondered if he meant it as a courtesy to me.

"Lane Jensen, Life magazine," she said. "Chancellor Degurechaff, where did you get that dress?"

I glanced down, surprised at the question. I had a few different sources for the more or less identical white dresses that served as the basis for my public wardrobe. Some uneven stitching at the hems marked the origin of this particular dress.

"Sister Edda, from the orphanage," I said. She made the clothes for most of the children. Unfortunately, I never outgrew her work. "She still sends me a care package from time to time."

"Well, I think that's about enough," President Hooper said. "We can talk later when you all have some more serious questions to ask."

He led me inside. I had to admit, if only to myself, that I was excited. I'd only ever seen American landmarks on television in my previous life. Even with all of the crazy things I'd been a part of since I had been reborn, participating in an actual working meeting in the Oval Office would be a highlight.

As we walked inside, Neumann trailed behind with the president's Secret Service detail. He was carrying my computation orb as well, so I kept an eye on his location. Behind him, Ambassador Weber had been pulled into a discussion with his counterparts. Anna had disappeared off somewhere, hopefully making herself useful.

All of that was left behind as we entered the president's private office and he closed the door behind us. I wasn't quite sure how a private meeting like this was supposed to go, so I stayed quiet and let the president make the first move.

"I'll admit, Chancellor," he said, as he took a seat behind his desk, "I had a bit of an ulterior motive when I invited you here."

I glanced around the room. The door had looked to have received significant armored reinforcement, but the wall next to it was ordinary enough. If I reinforced myself as much as I could without an orb, I'd have a decent chance of breaking through. Neumann should react before the Secret Service mages, and once I had my orb we could head for international waters.

I took a breath and composed myself. If he really wanted to ambush me, there was no need to be this polite.

He smiled when he saw that he had my full attention. "Dual core computation orbs."

"I beg your pardon?"

"We've talked to some of the Francois who were at Duisbusch. You know, they figure they were ambushed by a regiment of heavy artillery, a few bomber wings, and a couple of mage battalions," he said, shaking his head. "On the other hand, our analysts say everything could have been carried out by your old 203rd, if they got their gear back together and had the element of surprise."

"Well, I really couldn't say," I said. I certainly wasn't going to admit to any treaty violations in the absence of solid proof.

"Of course, the details are all pretty hazy after so much time," he said, spreading out his arms. "In fact, you've had plenty of time since the Londinium Conference to do research on computation orbs, all nice and legal. We just want to buy a piece."

"You want to buy access to the dual core technology?" I asked.

In a way, it was refreshing to have a nation's two-faced cynicism work in my favor. On the other hand, it was kind of annoying for the Americans to assume that anything they wanted to buy must be for sale.

"Exactly," he replied.

Magic orb technology was the one area where Germania definitely stood head and shoulders above the rest of the world. I hated the idea of giving up that advantage. True, in an all out war with the Unified States, fancy computation orbs wouldn't be nearly enough to turn the tide. And Dr. Schugel should be pretty far along with the next generation technology by now. Still, I didn't really want to give a potential rival such a substantial hand up.

"You know, ordinarily such important technology would only be shared with a trusted military ally," I said. While I was loathe to part with the technology, a guarantee from the Unified States would do more to secure our borders than a computation orb ever could.

"Yeah, well, I'd get kicked out of office if I tried to ally with anybody in central Europe," he admitted, "let alone you guys."

"So you want to purchase cutting edge military technology for mere money?"

"Not just money," he said. "A whole shitload of money. Forgiving the rest of your debt, for starters. After that, you tell me."

I appreciated that he wasn't beating around the bush. And it was true that, at some point, a large enough pile of money became a strategic asset in its own right. Even so, I couldn't make a decision of such magnitude off the top of my head.

"I need some time to think about this," I said.

"Sure, that's fine. If you'll let me offer some advice, though: you'll have less regrets if you sell when the market's hot," he said. "Tomorrow's afternoon entertainment is an air show. We might not be quite as far behind as you think."

Damn it. Americans did have their own tradition of scientific innovation, after all. It was a little arrogant to think that they would never develop a dual core orb on their own. On the one hand, that meant we should cling to our current lead all the tighter. On the other hand, maybe I should sell while the selling was good.

It was frustrating and a little disquieting to realize how much I'd been relying on my future knowledge. I had a rough outline of what commodities would be valuable for the rest of the century and how technology would develop based on my previous life's experience, but when it came to magic I had nothing to fall back on other than my own judgment.

My gut was telling me to say no and walk away. I worried, though, that a flat refusal might anger my hosts and put the trade deal in jeopardy. In that case, it would just be adding insult to injury if they already had orbs that were nearly as good as ours. Well, in any event, taking some time to think things over couldn't hurt. Let the Americans put a few more of their cards on the table.

ooOoo

A diplomatic trip did not just entail meeting with government bigwigs. It was also a chance to improve the country's image among the general public. Such a task was more important in a country like the Unified States, where public opinion could drive government policy. To that end, our evening was to be spent at a dinner hosted by a group of successful Germanian-American businessmen.

I changed out my usual outfit before we headed out. While I had forced myself to overcome my instinctive rejection of dresses, I still preferred to wear pants when possible. I didn't need to worry about maintaining a consistent image when I was separated from the voting public by thousands of miles. While I needed to maintain a bit of decorum, I could also take my own comfort into account. Accordingly, I dressed in a coat and pants that were cut very similarly to my old field uniform.

As a retired veteran, I was technically qualified to wear a dress uniform to this sort of occasion. I felt uncomfortable, though, wearing a military uniform while I was still active in civilian life. On the other hand, I found the actual design of the clothes quite comfortable. It had been simple enough to have a tailor produce a reasonable facsimile sans all the military decoration.

I finished changing fairly quickly, as was my habit. I wound up having to wait for a few moments while Ambassador Weber finished preparing himself before he, Anna, and I headed down to the courtyard attached to our temporary residence. As we waited for the driver to start our car and bring it around to pick us up, I noticed a surprising silhouette tucked away in a corner.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

Ambassador Weber started a bit, then followed my gaze towards the small car parked off to the side. "What? Ah, yes, my little bug."

I was a little impressed that he had managed to obtain the car and bring it to America when, to the best of my knowledge, the people's car wasn't yet on sale to the public. On the other hand, I was a little worried about our country's ambassador being seen driving around town in such a thing.

"I appreciate your determination to buy Germanian," I said, "but surely we pay you enough to buy something better."

That was the wrong thing to say, as it led Weber into a rant that carried through the entire trip to the event venue.

Apparently, he was both a personal friend and a rabid fan of Anton Ehrlich. When he had discovered that Ehrlich was working on a new project, he had pestered the man until he received a line drawing of the people's car. Once he saw it he immediately fell in love, traveling back to Germania on leave in order to essentially nag Ehrlich into producing a car for him. The car sitting in the courtyard was the result of a test run of the factory production line. While other such test products had been scrapped, this one had had its deficiencies fixed by hand before being shipped over to America. Ambassador Weber had then proceeded to more or less abuse his position in order to obtain a valid license plate for the thing.

He wasn't content with merely explaining how he had acquired the car. No, he was determined to regale us with the technical details that, in his opinion, made it so great. He had me going for a bit while he talked about the genius of simple industrial design, but the weakness in his case was revealed when he moved on to talk about the car's inherent charm. He might have been able to snow somebody who had never seen the car he was talking about, but I was not so naive. The only reason to talk about the people's car's supposed charm was in order to distract from its other weak points.

The saddest moment was when he cited the positive comments he had received while driving the car around town. He seemed unaware of his own social status. Germania might not be the same level of world power as the Empire, but still, being the official ambassador to the Unified States had some weight to it. He could walk around town in a tricorn hat and people would compliment his daring fashion sense in an attempt to butter him up.

Still, when he made his impassioned plea that I approve an initiative to sell the people's car in the Unified States, I didn't reject him out of hand. The costs associated with shipping the cars across the ocean and then shipping back most of them after they failed to sell wouldn't be too bad, relative to the national budget, and the man was otherwise good at his job. I didn't mind indulging in a little boondoggle in order to keep him happy.

Whatever the merits of his suggestion, Ambassador Weber's rant at least passed the time until we arrived at our destination. I followed him inside to be greeted by a round of cheers and presented with a mug of beer. I glanced over at Weber.

"Isn't alcohol illegal?"

"Production, sale, and transport across state lines is illegal," he said. "Technically, private ownership and consumption is permitted."

"It's amazing how long many private stockpiles have lasted. And, of course, this is a personal gathering of friends," added the American who had provided the drinks. "Chancellor, perhaps you'd like to say something to mark the occasion?"

I took a drink and looked around. The place had been done up like a Berun beer hall. Contrary to our host's claim that this was a small gathering, I guessed there were upwards of a hundred people present. Just taking a glance at the crowd, the people didn't look too different from what I saw at a lot of my campaign stops. A closer look revealed the differences, though. For one thing, the crowd skewed far older than the typical Germanian drinking establishment. For another, the dress sense was off. A lot of the men were wearing what they probably considered traditional Germanian garb: clothes that had been going out of style when I was a child.

For all that they wanted to emphasize our shared heritage, I couldn't think of anything much more American than treating your ancestry as an excuse to wear a costume. None of these men had been around to pick up a rifle and stand watch on the Rhine when the Empire had needed them.

I took a deep breath and schooled my expression. It was silly to bear a grudge over something like that. I was honest enough to admit that a lot of my irritation came from jealousy. While I'd been stuck enlisting in the military, they had lived out my dream by escaping to a peaceful country to live fat and happy lives. I couldn't let my personal feelings stand in the way of the best course of action.

This crowd was well placed to become early adopters and, I hoped, glowing references for the product of Germanian industry. The first rule of sales is that you don't have to like a customer to like taking his money.

I took another swallow from the drink I'd been holding as I hopped up on a table to address the room. If my audience was primed to connect with their ancestral lands, I'd have to play up that angle.

"I was born in the Empire. I grew up in the Empire. I loved the Empire," I said, the old patriotic lie rolling off my tongue with the ease of long practice. "But even as a young maiden in love, I could understand when the Empire was making a mistake."

That last statement, unlike the first, was true. I had not only spotted the Empire's mistakes, I'd complained about them at the time. I had the black marks on my military record to prove it, ridiculous as they were. Fortunately, anybody who spent any time interacting with me would quickly understand that the allegation that I was an unstable hothead too eager to attack the enemy had no basis in reality.

The crowd had fallen silent, taking their cue from my solemn tone of voice. I paused for a moment and surveyed the room before I continued.

"The Empire had a great military. It thought that wars of conquest would make the Germanian people great," I said. "They had it backwards. The great military only existed because of the greatness of the Germanian people!"

The Empire, once it unified, was the largest single country in western Europe. It also came into existence already enjoying technological parity, at a minimum, with its neighbors. It hardly took a brilliant mind to build an excellent army under those conditions. Most of the credit rightly belonged to the private citizens who were productive enough to fund and staff such a project.

Just like back home, flattery was enough to draw applause.

"I have always believed that if the Germanian businessman is given a fair shake, he can compete on even terms with the rest of the world," I said. "Look at the success you all have had, in this distant land."

More direct flattery drew a more vigorous round of applause.

In all honesty, I did have faith in the abilities of the average Germanian engineer or laborer. I was less sanguine when it came to design and marketing, although this group of expatriates had done well enough. Well, sometimes when a product was well built customers would find oddities of design endearing instead of annoying.

I took a moment to promote some of the recent products coming on the market in Berun. As this group of people was squarely in our target market, it was worth the effort to point them towards some specific items. I made sure to mention the people's car project as a sop to Ambassador Weber, although the average attendee at this get together was too wealthy to be interested in a cheap, under powered car. I had higher hopes for the rigid dirigibles being produced by the Bützow company. They had started work immediately upon the lifting of the restrictions of the Treaty of Triano and would soon be offering a sort of aerial cruise line service in Europe and beyond.

I had found myself daydreaming from time to time of an idle life on permanent flying vacation. It seemed like the kind of thing that would appeal to overworked businessmen. Floating around the great cities in the world, enjoying the fruits of Germanian engineering. Unfortunately, it would be a little hard to get permission to land in the City of Lights.

Well, I had to bring things back around to politics eventually.

"In Parisee they claim I want to conquer half the Francois Republic. First, I'll tell you-" I said, before I had to wait a moment for the hissing to subside. "First, their army is still larger than ours by a sizable margin. More important though, who wants to rule over a bunch of Francois?"

That got a cheer. It was a little sad how most of my successful rhetoric was buoyed by everybody's dislike of the Francois. I hoped that if I got a line or two in the history books, that detail would be overlooked.

"If you open a history book and tell me the business of the Empire was war, I can't disagree. We were certainly good enough at it," I said. "But I tell you that the age of imperial conquest is over! The business of Germania is business!"

That brought another cheer. Everybody liked to hear that their work was important.

"Gentlemen, a toast!" I said, raising the glass that I had set aside at the beginning of my speech. "To the Unified States of America! To Germania! And to a happy and profitable relationship for many years to come!"

The crowd cheered and took a drink along with me before dissolving into general hubbub. I was finally able to seat myself and start tucking into dinner. I barely noticed Anna detaching from me and heading off to mingle with the crowd. It had been a long day, and not even the effort that had been made to provide "a taste of home" could deter me from digging in with a will.

I was halfway through my second plate of sausage when I realized that Ambassador Weber was trying to get my attention.

"Chancellor, this is Ambassador Waldner from the Republic of Osterry."

"Ah," I said, forcing myself to ignore the food and turn my attention to the somewhat nervous looking man. "I hope the recent chaos in Ildoa hasn't been causing you too much trouble."

"No," he said, "well, it's not our biggest problem, that's for sure."

Now that I heard him speak, I realized that he had just finished giving a speech to the crowd. I hadn't been paying close attention, but I did remember that rather than praise for Osterry his speech had included a lot of pleas for generosity in trying times.

Osterry had buoyed its economy in the face of reparations payments by taking out a lot of loans, mostly from the Unified States. Now that the Unified States was facing some economic turbulence, renewing those loans was going to be tricky. While I'd been able to negotiate a reduction in reparations obligations directly, it would have been hard for Osterry to do such a thing after turning them into loans.

"Money troubles?" I asked. "I'd imagine with the market as it is borrowing from the Unified States will be difficult."

"Yes," the ambassador admitted, before visibly bracing himself. "Perhaps Germania could help us out? Your economic achievements have been remarkable."

I snorted. "Pulling our economy up from rock bottom doesn't mean that I can just throw money around like some crazy American."

"We can't offer fiscal rewards, it's true," he said, before leaning forward and lowering his voice. "But, Chancellor, many of our people want to rejoin our countries."

"Is that so?"

"Of course! Walking the streets of Wien, one in every two-no, three in every four men that I speak to will ask about such a thing at the first opportunity."

I laughed. Imagine, a country willing to throw in the towel on independence after six years because of its first financial downturn. I had to admit, it wasn't the worst scam that I'd seen. They obviously planned to play to my ego, take my money, and always promise reunification a few years in the future. If nothing else, objections from the rest of Europe would save them from ever having to follow through.

"Well, then, hold a vote. You get three in four voters to approve, I'll talk the Americans around into supporting us, and we'll go from there. Simple, right?"

And after that I'll make sure to allocate funds to build a power plant that runs on fairy dust and unicorn glitter. Shaking my head, I turned back to my meal. I came to this event to meet useful people, not con artists.

It wasn't until a half hour later, during the middle of the post-meal meet and greet, that I realized that the con man might have given me the graceful way out that I had been looking for. I still wasn't comfortable giving the Americans a flat no or setting a price that was clearly unacceptable, but asking for something just a bit outside their comfort zone would be perfect.

ooOoo

The form of the promised aerial display was a little different than I was expecting. We were invited to a park on the outskirts of town. When we arrived I could see the setup: two long, thin poles each holding a ring a foot or so in diameter well off the ground. The poles were separated by almost a hundred meters. All around them was green grass. A boundary line had been marked out in chalk, and a ring of bleacher seats set up outside the boundary.

A large grandstand was set up in the middle of the field, obviously the VIP seating. That would be my spot, then. I left my companions to sit among the general admission crowd and made my way up to where the president was waiting. He had brought a companion: General Morrow, a well known American aerial mage, although I'd never had a chance to take his measure in combat.

We made small talk while we waited for the show to start. General Morrow took the opportunity to explain the rules of what they were calling aerial lacrosse. Each team consisted of six men, each equipped with a computation orb and a stick with a net on the end of it. The game ball could only be manipulated by way of the nets and sticks, and each team was trying to get the ball through the opposing goal. The rules around advancing the ball and permitted defensive maneuvers were a little opaque, although I gathered that mage blades were strictly prohibited.

Further conversation was cut off by the arrival of the competitors. The teams were introduced as the Thunderbirds playing against the Blue Angels. I was a little surprised that such an upstart sport already had organized teams, before I remembered how much Americans loved their college sports. The players, circling the field and working the crowd, certainly looked to be the right age for college. Aerial lacrosse must have fit in right alongside football and ordinary lacrosse.

It was a little remarkable, when I took a moment to think about it, that American universities were wealthy enough to field what many smaller nations would consider to be a respectable air force. What a country.

Such thoughts were driven to the back of my mind as the game officially began. As confusing as some of the rules could be, it was certainly fast paced and exciting. It seemed like the kind of thing that would make for great television.

The flying ability on display actually wasn't terrible, either. It was a little hard to judge aerial mages working in such cramped confines, but all in all I'd say if these kids had been reporting to the front as rookies back in the beginning of the war, they'd have been in the upper half of the recruits. I did my best to turn off my inner critic and just enjoy the flow of the game.

When the players left the field at halftime, the Blue Angels in possession of a slim lead, President Hooper opened up where he had left off.

"Have you had a chance to think things over?"

"I spoke with the Osterrian ambassador last night. You know, he thinks his country is ready to unify with Germania. He says three out of four adults would vote for it if given the chance," I said, smiling. "Of course, I could never approve such a thing without one of the victorious allies from the Great War speaking in favor. Not to mention that somebody would have to do something about all that debt."

"You're asking for an awful lot," President Hooper replied.

"You know, I asked Mr. Daimler once why his cars were so expensive," I said. "He told me: because they're worth it."

The two men chuckled, but didn't bother to respond directly. The three of us settled back to watch the second half of the game, which ended in a hard fought victory for the Blue Angels. I was a little confused when a horde of aerial mages descended on the grounds immediately after the game with all sorts of equipment. Eventually it became clear that they were setting up some kind of obstacle course.

"As I said, Chancellor, we're in for a special demonstration today," President Hooper said.

The twelve men who had been playing aerial lacrosse lined up to take on the course. A large clock and leaderboard mounted by the finish line let the crowd keep track of everybody's performance. The course itself was interesting: hoops to fly through, bars to fly over and under, horizontal and vertical slaloms, all sorts of changes of direction.

The men completing the course were, still, perfectly adequate in terms of performance. The first one through finished at a time of three minutes thirty-four seconds. It wasn't slow enough that I would have had him cashiered out of hand, but I was fairly confident that I could take his orb and crack three minutes. I wasn't quite sure where the president was going with his little demonstration. If he had some kind of bleeding edge orb up his sleeve I wasn't sure why he was bothering with this dog and pony show.

The twelfth man put up the best time, at three minutes and twenty five seconds. Almost as soon as he crossed the finish line President Hooper turned to me with a smile.

"Perhaps our guests can show us how it's done?"

I almost stood up when the penny dropped. He was setting us up! He planned to run college students through the course to set a mediocre time, get us to put up our own score, and then knock us off our high horse with his newly developed super orb.

I didn't dare to go out there and put my own reputation on the line. I mean, with the Type 97 I was fairly confident I could run through the course at a minute forty-five, but the Type 97 was, after all, over ten years old by now. An American super orb might allow its user to finish in under a minute for all I knew. I couldn't risk the loss of face.

Fortunately, I had people for that kind of thing.

I leaned over the side of the grand stand. "Neumann! Get out there and run the course."

He looked a bit surprised at the order, but complied readily enough. I sat back and did my best to maintain a poker face. Neumann had a heavier build and a minor phobia of high g-forces, but even so he should be able to put up a somewhat respectable score somewhat under two minutes. He gave one final look over to me before he took off.

It got harder to keep up my serene expression as he butchered his way through the course. Sloppy transitions, lazy turns, even little bits of showboating, they all grated against my nerves like acid on my skin. I had a white knuckle grip on the bleacher, but at least I managed to keep from casting any strength enhancements and giving the game away by tearing a chunk out of the wood.

Even so, my smile was no doubt noticeably stiff when he clocked in at two minutes and eleven seconds. "Excuse me for a moment."

Without waiting for permission, I made my way down from the grandstand and out onto the field. I was in no mood to wait politely so I'd have a good view of Americans' coup de grace.

Neumann took one look at my expression and immediately stopped preening for the crowd, hanging his head as he followed me toward the bleachers. I led him into the tunnel connecting to the players' dressing rooms before I said anything. I counted to ten to calm down before I spoke, then made sure I was speaking in Germanian to try and thwart any eavesdroppers.

"What the fuck were you thinking? Did you even notice how much time you wasted out there, or were you too busy showing off for the redhead in the third row?"

"Well-"

"I let it slide the other day because we were just flying for fun, but I can't believe you'd be so sloppy in a real competition. Do you understand that you weren't just embarrassing yourself out there, you were embarrassing your country? You were embarrassing me!"

"I just-"

"What would Weiss say if he saw something like that? Do I need to send you back for remedial training? Or is this what passes for acceptable flying these days? Do I need to go train our new recruits myself?"

ooOoo

President Hooper sat, calmly observing the field in front of him. He didn't let himself stare at the clock displaying the absurd time the Germanian man had just put up, nor did he crane his neck to follow Chancellor Degurechaff as she stalked off the field. Presidential decorum, they called it.

Charles Morrow was not so restrained.

"She's really giving him both barrels," he said, standing on the edge of the grandstand and craning his neck for a better look.

"Can you tell what she's saying?" Hooper asked.

"Nah," Morrow said, "but I've been on both ends of an ass chewing enough times to know one when I see it."

Hooper shook his head. "She must have wanted him to sandbag his performance."

That got Morrow to take his attention off the show and turn back to face Hooper. He looked skeptical at first, before the light of understanding dawned across his face.

"And then, what," he said, "try to sell us their out of date equipment?"

Hooper didn't bear the chancellor a grudge. He'd done his fair share of sharp dealing. Still, he was thankful that her man had drawn the curtain back on the true potential of a dual core orb. It would have been embarrassing to pay through the nose for Germanian cast offs. Of course, the price would only go up now that the cat was out of the bag, but at least they would be getting top shelf gear.

"Something like that," Hooper said. "Well, we've seen what we're up against now. We can't even contemplate joining a war in Europe with that kind of magical performance gap."

As it was, they were damn lucky that the Empire had only ever managed to fit out one brigade of aerial mages with the dual core orbs. If every Imperial mage had been packing that kind of firepower then the war in the air would have been even more brutal than it already was. Even worse, every military analysis he had seen had suggested that air power was only going to be more important in the wars of the future.

"That's not even the worst of it," Morrow said. "A sub could unload ten or twenty men on our coasts easy peasy. Just imagine if all of them could fly like that."

Hooper grimaced. They'd been damn lucky so far that no criminal groups had shown up with well trained aerial mages. That couldn't last forever. It would be even worse if they had to face down an enemy nations' commando team with cutting edge technology. The idea of the American military finding itself badly outgunned while trying to defend the homeland was personally offensive to him. Not only that, but it would be the end of his political career-maybe even his political party-if such a thing were to come to pass.

"Damn it," Hooper said. "Can't we just throw more money at research and development?"

"That's what we've been doing so far," Morrow replied, gesturing towards where the top aerial performers gathered from the Navy and the nascent Air Force were still hanging their heads at being beaten so badly.

Hooper sighed.

"Well, if seventy five percent of Osterry wants unification," he said, "it would take a war to keep them apart, whatever our opinion."

He usually tried to avoid sticking his nose into European affairs, but a general statement in favor of holding a plebiscite was about as innocuous an intervention as he could imagine. The Allied Kingdom would give him a hard time, but with all the money and effort the Unified States had put into the Great War, he figured he was entitled to have his voice heard.

"Bit of a shame, not getting all that money paid back," Morrow said.

"It's just money," Hooper said, shrugging. "On the bright side, if all goes well we'll have a nice surprise ready the next time Albion sends the Black Cats over for a friendly competition."

While he did feel that the Unified States needed to improve its computing orb technology for strategic reasons, in his heart of hearts he could admit that he was also sick and tired of having foreign nations lord their superior aerial performance over him. If turning things around meant he needed to funnel a bit of money to Germania, then so be it. Besides, they'd make it back on grain sales soon enough.

ooOoo


	20. Chapter 20

_AN: Happy post-Tanya movie day, everybody!_

ooOoo

I wasn't sure how to feel about my bargain with the Americans. While it was true that Germania stood to gain quite a bit if everything went to plan, there was still every chance that I had stuck my neck out for nothing. The Senate could vote to reject the trade treaty. The Osterrian people could reject unification.

Still, the prospect of a peaceful reunification, however unlikely, was far too tempting to turn down. Even if things went wrong, managing the fallout would be somebody else's problem. At the very least, the effort should generate some goodwill in America. Although it would have been nice if I could have shaken the feeling that every time I shook hands to seal a deal with an American I had to count my fingers afterwards.

In any event, after the official signing of the treaty, I was given the opportunity to address a joint meeting of the Unifed States Congress. It was too much to hope for to think that I could persuade them into adopting policies that would avert the Great Depression. I knew even decades of study wouldn't lead to general agreement as to how it could have been avoided. As I stepped to the podium, I instead held out hope that I could perhaps start to build a rapport that could bring our countries closer together in the future.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for having me. I know many feel that in the absence of a large tariff increase, I would have been swindled, taken for a fool," I began. "I can tell you, if that is the case, then I would be happy to be such a fool."

For the most part, I wanted to lose support based on substantive issues. That would ensure the most lasting defeat. Losing a few points of support based on incompetent trade negotiations would still help me achieve my overall goal of losing office, though. Of course, I couldn't just say that out loud.

"I do not believe there is usually a winner and a loser when it comes to matters of trade. Each trade involves mutual agreement and therefore leaves both sides better off: rather than a winner and a loser, there is a winner and another winner," I said. "Of course, any market must be protected by reasonable safeguards, but between two modern countries like ours I believe the ocean is safeguard enough."

I was not ideologically committed to free trade. Naturally, there could be issues if neighboring countries enjoying vastly different standards of living lowered all barriers to trade. Between Germania and the Unified States, though, I honestly didn't see much cause to worry about that sort of thing. If American farmers could pay their work force in dollars, ship their product halfway across the world, and still beat Germanian farmers on price, well, at some point the Germanians would just have to get better at their jobs.

"International trade creates a great deal of wealth every day. Tariffs that reduce that trade impoverish us all. Even worse, tariffs lead to more tariffs as other countries retaliate," I said. "I fear that widespread tariffs could turn the current economic downturn from a minor recession into a great depression. If that can be avoided, and the only cost is a little embarrassment on my part, then I count that as a fine bargain indeed."

It was possible that I was misremembering or misunderstanding the Great Depression from my history, and tariffs had little or nothing to do with what happened. Unfortunately, it was difficult to run scientific experiments when it came to economic theories, even if the Americans had some reason to value my opinion. Fortunately, the state of the American economy wasn't my responsibility.

"Of course, there is another reason that I would rather not see the Unified States turn its face away from the wider world. The Red Army is on the march," I said. "For now they aim to kick the Akitsukushima Dominion off the mainland. Does anybody think their ambition will be sated once they reach the Pacific? I don't."

Specifically, their ambition would turn towards Germania, but there was no harm in insinuating that they might keep going east. While in Europe the Russite push to the Pacific coast was a reason to dismiss them as a threat, for the Americans it could well be reason for alarm. Just as long as they didn't pay too much attention to the current state of the Russite navy.

"Communism is a universal creed. It is a revolutionary ideal," I said. "Communists do not respect spheres of influence. Communists do not respect the balance of power. They seek, always and everywhere, to spread their revolution. They pursue their unholy crusade, having knocked God off his throne and replaced him with the Devil."

Much as I hated to give even oblique deference to Being X, I had to speak in a language that my audience could understand. There was a reason that "godless commies" had become a timeless epithet.

"The communist, once in charge, has no respect for tradition. Like the inquisitors of old, he has no respect for personal conscience," I continued. "To the communist, you are either promoting the communist revolution, or you are an obstacle to be overcome. Or removed."

I could tell that my audience was with me generally in terms of disliking communism, but they didn't seem to feel any sort of sense of urgency. I figured it was hard to get too riled up when any potential danger was all the way across the Pacific ocean.

"You might not be interested in communism, but the communist is very interested in you. Your prosperity, your happiness, the very fact that you disdain to treat him seriously," I said. "All of this is more than enough reason for the communist to hate. If there's one thing the communist knows how to do well, it's hate."

If all I could do was fear monger, I was going to do my best.

"When the present war ends, the communists will be in possession of a large and powerful army in the service of their large and powerful nation," I said. "The nations of the free world must stand together if we are to face down communist tyranny."

I was well aware that the most likely American response to any conflict between Germania and the Rus federation was likely to be some variant of "let's you and him fight." Even so, a positive American attitude towards our country would be tremendously valuable if my successors did have to go to war to fend off the commies. Simply being able to buy American goods and raw materials would relieve a lot of pressure on our economy, let alone a program like Lend Lease. Conversely, a Lend Lease program funneling support to the Rus would be a disaster.

"The people of Germania are always willing to extend the hand of friendship," I said. "Wherever a young democracy is threatened by the communist menace, we will stand shoulder to shoulder in their defense. I hope we will be able to look to the side and find the Unified States standing beside us as well."

At least, I hoped not to look to the back and find a knife there stamped with a made in the USA logo.

ooOoo

The first thing I did upon returning to Germanian soil was to direct the military to draw up a plan for the changes that would be necessary if we were to absorb Osterry. While it would represent an increase in population and tax revenue, it would also create a new border with the increasingly unstable Kingdom of Ildoa. Fortunately, the border cut through a mountain range and so should be relatively straightforward to defend.

Even so, General Lergen didn't seem enthusiastic. I couldn't blame him. First I had forced him to tear up his painstakingly created plans for the invasion of the Francois Republic, then I made him disband his carefully preserved hidden troops, and now I was forcing him to draw up plans for a unification that very well might not even happen. I'd never wanted to be one of those politicians who dumped extra work on the military in pursuit of my own personal ends, but it seemed to have happened without my really thinking about it. I took some solace in the thought that I was only wasting time rather than lives.

The actual vote was subject to quite a bit of delay. When Osterry first announced their intentions, it set off a storm of denunciations throughout Europe. The Francois, of course, were most extreme in voicing their displeasure, but it seemed that almost everybody was at least tacitly opposed to anything redolent of the Empire getting back together. I had to admit, the Americans really came through for us in their response, even if it was a little demeaning.

Hooper's stance on the issue rested on three observations and a statement. First, that combining Osterry with Germania would hardly alter the balance of power in Europe. Second, that most of the Empire would be far less willing to rejoin with Germania. Third, that keeping two neighboring countries separate in the face of an overwhelming desire to unify would require an expensive long term commitment. And finally, that the Unified States had no interest in spending either blood or treasure preserving Osterrian independence if three quarters of the Osterrian people didn't want it.

When all was said and done, the vote was able to go forward. Between the discussion and the need to allow for campaigning before voters made their decision, the vote was set to take place several months after my return to Germania. In the mean time, the people's car project finally reached the stage where it could be announced to the public.

It had taken some doing to get the assembly line running to a reasonable standard. When I had first toured the allegedly completed plant, there hadn't even been a process in place to encourage workers to suggest changes that would improve productivity. Even as a former HR employee, I at least understood some of the very basic procedures that should be embraced on the factory floor. I worried sometimes that the egghead Ehrlich had too much influence on the supposedly reliable plant manager who was in charge of day to day operations.

The other last minute snag had to do with consumer financing. This world did not yet have the concept of a credit score. It hadn't occurred to me that something like that had had to be invented at some point in time, but there it was. As I had no idea how to go about calculating a proper credit score I settled on a simpler solution: anybody who could show that they had a steady job and put fifty marks down would be sold a car on credit, being charged twenty marks a month for five years. If my math was right that worked out to a nine or ten percent interest rate.

I wasn't confident that every loan would be paid back, but at the very least every loan would be secured by a car. Also, of course, the political fallout from massive consumer defaults would be somebody else's problem as long as they took a year or two to ripen to fruition.

Overall, the initial rollout had gone fairly well. I'd discussed the car in reasonably matter-of-fact fashion on the radio, and it had seen a decent amount of newspaper coverage. Of course, not everybody was happy with the program, as Elya reminded me.

"Mr. Becker will be here in a few minutes," she said, delivering the reminder along with an armful of paperwork and my second cup of coffee for the morning. "Honestly, I don't see how he could be so upset by such a cute car."

It was a little sad that even somebody as devoted as Elya couldn't come up with any other positive adjectives in describing the thing. Well, as long as the price was cheap enough, we should at least sell some of them.

"Of course, the car isn't a threat to anybody's business," I said. "He's worried about the precedent."

I was actually a little impressed that he had spotted the implications of the people's car project so quickly. Of course, considering the political environment, it would make sense for politicians to be hypersensitive towards anything even hinting at a communist approach to the economy.

Elya looked skeptical. She settled on the corner of my desk and crossed her arms. "He hardly seems the type to make a stand on a matter of principle."

That was a fair point. Becker was the sort of politician who, at the very least, didn't see any problem with doing well by doing good.

"True, Mr. Becker doesn't suffer from an overdeveloped sense of ethics," I said. "But this is a pretty big deal."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? It's just a car."

"Today, a government owned car company. Tomorrow, who knows?" I said, spreading my arms wide. "Government owned farms, kicking people off their land? Government owned bakeries taking over food distribution? Keep going, and you can wind up with a communist society in all but name."

Elya frowned. "You wouldn't do that, though."

"That's true," I said. "but it's a little hard to ask for trust after I sneaked the people's wagon through the Diet without any debate."

Once burned, twice shy, as they say. It was an inevitable consequence of my plan to turn on my allies that my allies would be skeptical of any future promises.

"Still-"

She was cut off by the buzzer. Huffing slightly in frustration, Elya stood and left to escort Becker into my office. She made sure that he was provided with something to drink before leaving, shutting the door behind her. Becker fidgeted for a moment, looking at his feet, before finally gathering his courage and looking me in the eye before almost blurting out what he had come to say.

"Chancellor Degurechaff, this people's car project is simply too much to bear," he said. "The Germanian National Party can't govern together with a party that endorses such a thing."

It was pretty much as I'd expected. Honestly, I'd expected more yelling.

"Very well," I said. "I suppose I'll be seeing you on the campaign trail."

"Well..." he said, sagging noticeably. "In light of the delicate political situation, we are willing to wait to dissolve the government until after the vote regarding Osterrian unification has been held."

That was thoughtful of him. As a party that was in favor of regaining as much of the Empire's lost territory as possible, the Germanian National Party would want to put a happy face on for the people of Osterry to see as they made their decision. I was more ambivalent on the Osterrian question, but the delay otherwise suited my purposes. It would allow more time for the Great Depression to propagate around the world. Also, I would either be facing a backlash from the failure to annex Osterry or the prospect of dilution of my party's share of the vote due to the Osterrian regional parties.

"How generous," I said. "I suppose that will give you time to develop your best line of attack."

I had only been intending to tease the man, but Becker drew himself up as though I had insulted his honor. "I hadn't considered such a thing."

I took a moment to look him over. The Germanian National Party hadn't really impressed me with their political acumen in the past. I had, after all, managed to overtake their share of the vote despite being saddled with a nigh-suicidal party platform. Becker struck me as exactly the sort of politician who would rather lose with dignity than dirty his hands with a rough and tumble campaign. I had initially thought that they would have an easy time stealing away my voters. Now, though, I wondered if they needed to be pointed toward some viable campaign themes.

"Sure, sure. You know, while the people's car project targeted a market that had been ignored, there's no telling which business might be forced to compete with the government," I said. "Even the rumor that some particular industry is next would drive them into your arms. It would be very difficult to rebut, as well."

"The Germanian National Party would never deal in unsubstantiated slander," he protested. I could only hope he was shining me on while planning to take advantage of my weakness in the future.

"Of course. Also, come to think of it, while I think everybody involved in the people's car project is being compensated fairly," I said, "it would be hard to prove that I didn't just hand out sweetheart deals to my friends."

"In the political campaign, the Germanian National Party would not dare to put forth any claims that we can't back up with proof."

It was like he wouldn't even try to win. Well, there was only so much I could do. I could only hope that he would at least relay the content of our conversation to somebody with a little more political savvy.

ooOoo

I was honestly unsure just how I wanted the vote in Osterry to end up. It would be a real waste of diplomatic capital if they decided against unification. On the other hand, going forward with unification would lead to a whole host of problems. It would lock in the Francois Republic's change in its attitude toward us from simmering anger to volcanic rage. For that matter, the Allied Kingdom was already noticeably cool to the idea of a plebiscite. I couldn't imagine they'd be happy with a yes vote.

From an internal perspective, it was also a mixed bag. Peacefully reunifying with Osterry would neutralize an obvious source of revanchist sentiment. However, strengthening Germania would only embolden my successors in their pursuit of their own agenda. While President Hooper was right to say that adding Osterry to Germania didn't really change our ranking among the Great Powers, any taste of success would naturally encourage people to pursue more of the same.

For me, personally, I didn't expect that the vote would make much difference. If it failed, my party would be embarrassed and would lose its share of the vote. If it succeeded, the country would almost immediately be facing a general election. The batch of new voters from Osterry would hardly have time to join up with the Germanian parties and would likely stick with their own political groupings. In that case, every Germanian party would see a reduced overall vote share.

In the end, I decided to leave it up to chance. I dressed it up a bit when I gave Elya her instructions. I told her that we didn't want citizens joining our nation who had to be browbeaten or sweet talked into voting for unification. Really, though, I just didn't want to take responsibility for the outcome. As a side benefit, if we didn't campaign in Osterry at all, then the international observers who had insisted on supervising the election wouldn't have anything to complain about.

As it turned out, the vote wasn't particularly close. Eighty-seven percent of the people of Osterry voted in favor of unification. I had to admit that I was shocked. I knew that the previous leaders had bungled things, but I didn't realize that they had screwed up so badly that the voters would decide to give up on having their own country. Go figure.

Once that vote was in the books, the German National Party announced that they were leaving the government. Accordingly, a new general election would be held in forty-five days. I, of course, shamelessly skived off of any electioneering.

There was no lack of official business to do, after all. While Osterry had once been part of the Empire, it had never been part of a Germanian republic. There were a thousand and one little things to take care of in order to ensure that the integration went smoothly.

Visha and Elya pestered me to do my job as head of the party and campaign, quite reasonably, not to mention everybody else whose personal careers rested on our electoral results. It was nice to feel wanted. I had always believed, not to put too fine a point on it, that much of the party's success rested on my energetic campaigning. It was reassuring to find that other people shared that assessment.

Even so, I had to harden my heart and turn them all down. Visha's puppy dog eyes proved to be the most formidable assault on my resolve. I had to fight back my instinctive response and firmly set my focus on the beautiful responsibility-free future waiting for me after the election. I ended up giving her one of those typical shounen speeches about how she was capable of carrying the campaign by herself if she just believed in herself, completely eliding my own refusal to chip in.

All in all, things seemed to be proceeding as I had expected. Our economy hadn't cratered as badly as it no doubt would during the depths of the Depression, but our rate of growth had slowed. Other nations in Europe, and of course the Unified States, were experiencing increasing economic distress, so it was obvious that we were soon going to be in for a bad time. The voters should want a change in direction. Also, enough time had passed since the conference at Londinium for the electorate's gratitude to have faded. By now they should just take it for granted that any politician could have thrown off the treaty of Triano if they had just tried. Finally, our coalition partners were so badly alienated that they had dissolved the government of their own initiative. I was feeling pleased with myself as we approached the election.

I decided to indulge myself one last time and appropriate the airwaves the day before the election for an unofficial farewell address. Once I was voted out of office I would have to pay for airtime like everybody else.

 _"It has been my honor to serve as your Chancellor for these last few years. Looking back, I can't say that I am completely satisfied with what we have accomplished, but neither can I say I am completely unhappy with our achievements."_

I couldn't come right out and concede the election before any votes were cast, but I could strike the right tone.

 _"As we head to the polls for the fourth national election in our young republic's history, I would like to take a moment to commend our newfound habit of the peaceful transition of power. Other nations facing the sort of challenges that we have weathered may have resorted to revolution or dictatorship, but Germanians have proven to be quite capable of governing ourselves."_

If there was one message I wanted everybody to take away from my speech, it was to please, please, not cause any trouble. Once I was out of office I wouldn't be able to rein in any of the country's many war maniacs directly, but I hoped that this last speech might help a bit by calming them down a little.

 _"In truth, more and more the fate of nations around the world turns on the ballot box rather than the cartridge box. The era in which a country could expand through force of arms is coming to a close. We must maintain a strong military, of course, but in the future its primary purpose will be to protect the democratically expressed will of the people."_

All in all, it was not the most stirring speech, but I was happy to close my time in office with what was, for me, a statesmanlike performance. If I was lucky, the speech might help stave off another Great War. If I was unlucky, well, I did intend to take a Type 97 orb with me as a retirement gift.

I went to bed that night with a clear conscience and slept like a baby.

I felt much less sanguine the next day when I discovered that the Germanian Workers' Party had somehow received over seventy percent of the vote. My only hope was that President Rudersdorf could come up with some way to fix this catastrophic deviation from my carefully laid plans.

ooOoo

Kurt von Rudersdorf jerked awake as his housekeeper cleared his throat. He had dozed off while waiting to hear the election results. He frowned, ignoring his housekeeper for the moment as he studied the back of his hands. In his mind, he could still remember himself as a young soldier, standing watch through the night and fighting the next day when the Empire called on him. It was hard to reconcile that image with the wrinkles and liver spots he now carried.

He shook his head, dispelling the thought. That young man belonged to an entirely different era. He had served the Empire, in a world where war had not yet been changed by the advent of the machine gun. Best to seal him away in the back of his mind.

His housekeeper delivered the news that he had expected. Chancellor Tanya von Degurechaff, fresh off her string of incredible successes, had received an overwhelming share of the vote. She would be free to lead Germania more or less however she wanted. She was also waiting politely at his front door.

Rudersdorf directed his housekeeper to let her in, then stood. He ignored the creaking of his spine and the old twinge in his left knee, took up his cane, and hobbled from his private study to his parlor. Degurechaff entered the room just as he did, and bobbed her head in greeting. She looked surprisingly serious for somebody who had just won an election. Well, surprising to an observer who didn't know her personality.

"President Rudersdorf," she said. "I wanted to talk to you about the recent elections."

The first time she had been made Chancellor, Rudersdorf had contemplated that some day he might have to invite her to his house in order to have a serious discussion about the future of the country. This wasn't quite how he had envisioned it would go. He felt a wry smile tugging at his lips. It wasn't like anything else about Tanya von Degurechaff had ever gone as he expected.

It was amazing, really, how little she had changed since the first day he met her. Looking at her now, he could still see the tiny eleven year old girl, perfectly comfortable in her custom tailored military uniform as she prepared to lead men to war.

"I still remember the day Hans von Zettour told me about his new trump card," Rudersdorf said, lost in the memory. "To be honest, I wanted nothing more than to yank you away from the 203rd battalion."

"Oh?" she asked. She sounded startled, and perhaps a bit offended. Perfectly reasonable. Degurechaff and the 203rd were both legends, and one could hardly have existed without the other.

"I had read your revolutionary approach to logistics," Rudersdorf said. "I thought it was a waste to put that kind of mind on the front lines. I wanted to attach you to the General Staff as a liaison to the Railway Department."

Looking back, it was almost as if he had been trying to lose the war. If he'd followed his instincts, the Empire may never have taken Legadonia, let alone captured Parisee.

"A waste?"

"Your performance in Dacia was impressive, of course, but I had to consider the quality of the opposition. Even when you came to Norden, I was just waiting for you to put one foot wrong," Rudersdorf said. Even now, with the benefit of hindsight, he thought his reasoning had been, well, reasonable, though his conclusions were obviously mistaken. "Anything, just to give me the excuse to stash you in the rear. I thought your best hope for the future was a safe, stable career."

"A safe, stable career?"

Degurechaff's voice had taken on a rather strangled quality. Rudersdorf smiled, this time with genuine warmth. Of course the Argent Silver would consider a safe posting a fate worse than death.

"Soon enough, your exploits on the field of battle showed what a foolish idea that would have been," Rudersdorf said. "But I think I was right, in a way. You were always meant to be more than just a soldier."

"You're too kind," she replied absently, still apparently reeling from how close she had come to losing her front line posting without even realizing it.

"It's not easy to bear the weight as a pillar of the country," Rudersdorf said. "For a while, Hans and I were able to play that role."

It was a bittersweet feeling. He still felt the pride of having been entrusted with the future of the Empire along with Hans von Zettour, though it was inextricably tinged with the regret of having failed.

"Don't talk like that," Degurechaff said. "You're still the President. The Diet technically can't even form a government without your approval!"

Rudersdorf chuckled. As mature as she was, Degurechaff did have her emotional side. He wasn't conceited enough to consider himself any kind of father figure to her, but he liked to think that she considered him to be at least a somewhat favored uncle. It was sweet of her to attempt to console him, but the sad truth was that time stopped for no man. He felt that truth every time he struggled out of bed in the mornings, these days.

"I'm an old man," he said. "It's past time that I passed the torch on to the next generation. I always thought that you would be my successor's successor, but I'm glad that I've lived long enough to see you come in to your own."

Degurechaff stared at him, completely poleaxed. Rudersdorf started to speak again, but was interrupted by a cough. He felt an unsettling rattling feeling in his chest, but on the bright side his hand came away from his mouth free of blood.

"Don't worry, I should last through the rest of the term," he said. "You'll be able to roll me out when you need a rubber stamp for a decision or you want to add some dignity to an event."

"This can't be happening," Degurechaff protested. Rudersdorf took a step closer to her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"It's all right. I've had a good run," he said. "I'm relieved to be leaving the country in such capable hands."

She bowed her head. They stood there for a moment in silence. Rudersdorf took a step back when he saw a tear trickling down her face, before clearing his throat and turning to look out the window.

"If you'll excuse me, I was planning to enjoy a cigar out on the veranda," he said.

While he was flattered that his situation had broken through Degurechaff's iron self control, he was hardly inclined to drag things out or to insult her by creating a maudlin scene. Old soldiers died. It was the natural way of things.

Degurechaff nodded. She turned around and trudged toward the door, showing none of the almost manic energy that usually surrounded her. His heart went out to her. For having gone through eight years of war, he knew she had experienced relatively little loss. In a way, her own excellence in looking out for her men had left her more vulnerable than most veterans.

It was a pity, but he knew that she would get over it. Degurechaff had always had her eyes firmly fixed on the future. While he regretted that he wouldn't be around to see the full scope of her career, he was grateful that he had been present to see so many of her accomplishments. He expected that in the few years that he had left he'd be seeing quite a few more.

ooOoo

 _AN2: If this were a real publication, we would end the book here with Tanya's realization that she's stuck as Chancellor (ideally this would be the end of book 2, with book 1 having ended as she first took the position). I did consider ending the whole story here, but I think there's room for one more plot arc as Tanya works towards peaceful coexistence in Europe. This would be in_ A Young Woman's Wartime Leadership _if it were done up as a separate book/fic._


	21. Chapter 21

_AN: For reference, Tanya's reelection took place in March of 1939._

ooOoo

I was reeling as I left President Rudersdorf's residence. By the time I made it home, though, I had more or less gotten myself together. Once I had a moment to think things through rationally, I felt a little silly for having been so upset in the first place.

First of all, Rudersdorf was obviously viewing the past through rose-colored glasses. When he talked to me now, he was talking to a colleague who had accompanied him through the ups and downs of the war, not to mention a veteran with a sparkling war record. Naturally he would be willing to forgive any past transgressions that I confessed to him. However, he hardly would have cut the same amount of slack to an officer fresh out of War College. Back then, cowardice would have been rewarded with an order to charge the enemy lines, not a cushy rear line position.

The more pressing issue, of course, was that I looked to be stuck in charge of the country for the foreseeable future. Now that the voters-not to mention the governing class-had had a taste of success based on reckless brinkmanship, my own resignation would hardly put the country on a trajectory towards a peaceful future. Instead, my only chance was to serve out my term and try to steer things in a more reasonable direction.

I hadn't wanted to take on the task, but now that I was stuck with it I didn't think it was completely impossible. After all, the foreign policy theory of the day was appeasement, and then if that didn't work, more appeasement. In the history that I knew, it had taken a nigh suicidal level of constantly escalating provocations to push countries out of the appeasing mindset. As long as I maintained a more reasonable foreign policy, there shouldn't be a second Great War.

One week after the election I met with the Pullskan ambassador at his request, only to be presented with his plan for a nigh suicidal level of escalating provocation. While I often worried about the interference of Being X's invisible hand, it seemed that human idiocy would be the more pressing danger.

"And I can assure you, Chancellor," he said, winding up his pitch, "that you wouldn't see such an insulting result as merely eighty-seven percent of the population voting in favor of reunification!"

I glanced to the side at General Zettour. Or rather, Foreign Minister Zettour. I had shuffled the Cabinet around after the most recent election. With domestic affairs more or less in order, the dangers we would face over the next few years would come from abroad. I wanted Zettour to play a key role because he was by far the most effective member of my cabinet. He had the savvy that came with years of experience and the energy of a man half his age. He also knew when to play the bad cop.

"Do you have a reason to believe we could win the Second Great War that such an action would provoke?" he asked.

"It wouldn't..." the ambassador protested, floundering for a moment. "Our actions would be in line with the principle of self-determination that the Americans put forward."

Time for me to jump in and nip this in the bud.

"The only principle the Americans believe in is the profit motive," I said, smiling to take some of the sting out of the rebuke. "You should know that."

He stared at me for a moment before giving a resigned nod. As I'd expected, he had simply allowed optimism to overcome his better judgment in the heat of the moment.

"It's possible that the Americans might keep their nose out of things, considering the recession," Zettour added, "but it's not like we'd have an easy time of it just fending off the countries of western Europe. And, of course, we've already seen that it's unrealistic to expect the Americans to sit on the sidelines forever."

The ambassador looked down, his shoulders slouching. "We truly can't hold the vote?"

"Unfortunately," I said, "we can't just do what we want and ignore world opinion until we're strong enough to fight off the whole world."

The fight seemed to have entirely gone out of the ambassador. That was a relief. It would have been a real mess if Pullska had decided to bull through with a referendum despite our warnings. With the application of the stick having convinced them to back off, it was time for a liberal application of the carrot to make sure that Pullska stayed on the right track.

"I do understand your concerns," I continued. "There are a few things we can do."

As much as the people of Pullska may have gloried in their time as part of the Empire, they wouldn't be so eager to reunite out of simple nostalgia. No, a more plausible explanation was readily visible: fear. Pullska, a small nation, shared a border with the gargantuan Russy Federation. They had security guarantees from the Allied Kingdom and Francois Republic, but as the saying goes, distant water can't quench immediate thirst. Pullska's best option for genuine security was to earn the protection of a strong neighbor that could see off the commies.

I would have been happy enough to ally with them. Unfortunately, Germania was forbidden by treaty from allying with any of the Imperial successor states, let alone reuniting with them. I'd gotten away with thumbing my nose at the rest of the Europe once. A second attempt would certainly lead to war. Still, there were some things I could do to help discourage Russite aggression.

"The Treaty of Londinium prohibits any overt military cooperation," Zettour said.

"However, I can recommend a few men that you may wish to hire as consultants," I said. "They have personally observed the Russy army in action and helped develop modern defense works capable of fending off modern armies."

Koenig and his team had recently returned home from their unofficial military tour. They had done a great deal to throw sand in the gears of the Russite military machine and slow down the communists' advance, but in the end thirteen men could only do so much. Even thirteen aerial mages. The sheer mass of Russy's anti-aircraft fire had hemmed in their ability to do anything.

Fortunately, Koenig had heeded my directions to preserve the lives of his men and had resisted the urge to pursue any foolish heroics. Instead, he retreated in good order once he judged he was unable to contribute any further. He returned with a great deal of useful military intelligence, the grateful thanks of the Akitsushiman Dominion, and an armful of truly atrocious sake.

He and his team had been stationed at the new aerial mage academy since their return. They were running a special course on infiltration tactics. I was confident that he could spare some time to apprise our neighbor of the realities of modern warfare. Considering my own memories of training cadets, he'd probably appreciate the vacation.

"We are also prohibited from stationing any troops on Pullskan soil or conducting joint military exercises," Zettour said.

"Of course, it shouldn't be a problem for a few Pullskan observers to accompany our own military during training operations," I said. "And if you take a fancy to anything that you see, our arms manufacturers have been instructed to make their whole catalog available to you at a very reasonable price."

I was happy to subsidize any arms purchases that Pullska wanted to make. Any gun that they bought was another gun between me and the Red Army. All the better if the gun was a modern design. Push come to shove, I'd be happy to ship them boxcars of anti-tank guns for free. As for the costs, I could count it as economic stimulus.

"This is a lot to think about," the ambassador said.

"Well," I replied, "whatever the official state of things, we're all in the same boat if the Rus start marching west."

Koenig estimated that the Akitsushiman army had a few months of fight left in them before they'd be forced to retreat off the mainland. Based on my own memories, I thought it was too optimistic to think that the Akitsushimans would rationally cut their losses and retreat in a hopeless situation. Even factoring in a bunch of disastrous last stands, though, I doubted the war would last more than six months. After that, well, it would be interesting to see what the commies decided to do.

"As for economic cooperation," Zettour said, "considering that we already have a free trade agreement, there's not much more the government can do."

"The good news is that some Germanian firms should soon be establishing factories in Pullska," I added.

In this benighted pre-Internet era, good economic statistics were hard to come by. However, Germania did have access to one handy metric, thanks to my ongoing infrastructure improvement project. When I had first started the program, we were able to attract swarms of workers simply by offering three meals a day and a place to sleep. Now, as we expanded the highway system into Osterry, we had been forced to pay significant wages in order to maintain sufficient staffing.

The slow but steady process of economic recovery had gradually lifted wages across Germania. New job openings were no longer greeted with the same press of hungry applicants that they used to produce. As a result, I expected Germanian companies to take advantage of our trade links with former Imperial countries and look to expand their operations into areas with less competition for workers.

"I understand," the ambassador said. "I'll have to consult with my superiors before we take the next steps."

I saw him off with a smile. It would be a comfort to have a strong, independent bulwark on our eastern border.

ooOoo

The next big meeting, a week later, was something that I had deliberately scheduled so that my successor could be brought up to speed on the status of Germania's military. And, of course, so I could avoid the work. With my plans thwarted by my inexplicable electoral success, I had to bite the bullet and do my best to provide guidance at our comprehensive military review.

The basic concept was relatively straightforward. Germania had only recently been allowed to produce modern military weapons after years of treaty-imposed stagnation. Not only that, but I had pushed for some particular developments based on my memory of my original world's history. Once the new military technology had been issued to our soldiers, I had insisted on undertaking a series of large scale training exercises. The purpose of this meeting was to assess the performance of the troops as well as the new technology, and to make plans for the future.

I was attending to represent the civilian government. I was accompanied by Visha and General Lergen. General Groener and General Gude were present to represent the general staff. General Ziegler attended for the army, and Admiral Albrecht for the navy. Weiss was there as the head of the aerial mage branch of the air force, along with his boss, the overall head of the air force, General von Richtoffer. Rounding out the group was General Thiel, who managed Germania's experimental weapons development institute.

Looking around the table, I could see a lot of fancy shoulder boards. Weiss and von Richtoffer were noticeably younger than the heads of the other service, reflective of the youth of their branch of the military. They had both distinguished themselves during the Great War, though, and remained composed even in such rarefied company.

After a brief round of introductions, General Ziegler gave the first presentation on practical matters. He started from the ground up with a discussion of the new assault rifle. The StG-38, as my attempt to replace the AK-47 had come to be known, had been met with some initial skepticism by the ground troops. As they gained practical experience with the weapon, though, that skepticism had turned into acceptance and then into a competition to be the first issued the new weapon.

As I had expected, it was hard to resist the charm of a reliable semi-automatic weapon. The design team had only made a few changes in order to aid mass production. Soon, the assault rifle would be our standard infantry long arm. Ramping up production would also give us a stockpile that could be issued quickly to the reserve in case of war. Eventually, I envisioned sending crates of them to resistance movements within the Russy Federation, but that was just a dream for the moment.

As a side effect from the popularity of the assault rifle, arms manufacturers had proposed a variety of new automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The army was pursuing three such guns in particular: a new general purpose machine gun, a smaller caliber machine pistol designed for automatic fire, and a larger version of the StG-38 for aerial mages that remained accurate at longer range. All in all, our average infantry unit would be putting out a much higher volume of fire than they had managed during the Great War.

The report on the newly developed tank was more mixed. Of course, the new units were more effective than the clunkers the Empire had relied on during the Great War. However, the reliability problems that the Empire had experienced, which designers had tended to put down to wartime conditions and outdated technology, were still popping up with the latest models. Large scale exercises that featured fake bullets and fake explosives had resulted in a disturbing number of very real mission-killed tanks solely due to mechanical breakdowns.

Ziegler presented an overview of the army's plans for modifying the new tanks to be more reliable and easier to fix in the case of problems. All well and good, assuming everything worked out, but unfortunately Koenig's return had revealed a more fundamental problem with the design.

"According to our analysis of the most recent data," General Groener said, "our current tank would be unable to penetrate the frontal armor of the latest Russy tank, except perhaps from point blank range."

Ziegler shrugged. "It can still fulfill its expected role."

He had a point. Strictly speaking, the purpose of a tank wasn't really to kill other tanks.

While I had reincarnated with a level of historical knowledge that had allowed me to predict the general evolution of warfare, even in a world of magic, I hadn't really grasped the nitty-gritty of trench warfare until I experienced it in practice. In my mind, the war would involve two armies crouched in opposing trenches taking pot shots at each other. Occasionally one army would attempt an assault, only to be cut to ribbons by machine guns. I even dared to hope that mages could break the stalemate.

Unfortunately, trench warfare in reality was more dynamic and more resilient than I had imagined. First of all, it was quite possible for a determined assault to seize a trench. There was a reason armies kept sending men over the top. Of course, taking one trench was hardly a decisive breakthrough. There were more trenches lined up behind the first and, more importantly, railroad tracks to carry reinforcements. While the attacker was stuck sending reinforcements slogging through no-man's-land, the defender could bring them in by the train car. The disparity was even greater when it came to artillery.

Tanks allowed the attacker a fighting chance. Instead of having to drag an artillery piece through the mud, or having to try to chivvy a horse across no-man's-land, the attacking force could bring in their big guns in the form of a motorized vehicle. The ability of one tank to defeat all challengers one-on-one duels was irrelevant to the question of whether it was good at performing its assigned task.

"While that's true," General Gude said, "if trenches become obsolete then the next war might feature maneuver warfare on a large scale. In that case, the expected role of a tank would change."

It was nice to have a General Staff devoted to thinking about that kind of thing. It saved me the embarrassment of having to pass off my memories of WWII as original insights.

"I assume you have a suggestion," I said.

"We've had designers working since we received the initial report," General Groener replied. "The design isn't complete, but they estimate that a tank that supported sufficient firepower for our needs will be in the neighborhood of forty-five or fifty tons."

I wracked my brain, trying to recall long-forgotten facts and figures. Was that a reasonable size for an actual working tool of war? I'd like to defer to my generals' military judgment, but I had a feeling they would try to put a railway gun on a tracked platform if I let them run wild. Well, adding another twenty tons didn't seem too crazy. And we would need something capable of going toe to toe with Russite armor, most likely.

"Let's plan to make this larger design our new main battle tank," I said. "Please take as many cues as possible from our current design."

I held back a sigh and waved farewell in my mind to our projected budget surplus. It would be painful to purchase what was essentially a second complete fleet of tanks, but that was the cost of staying on the cutting edge. I consoled myself with the thought that it would be far more expensive for our military to be found wanting in a moment of need.

"Yes, Chancellor."

"Also, please conduct a study on other possible uses for the existing platform," I added. "I'm told that Russy's army makes heavy use of tracked anti-aircraft guns and armored personnel carriers."

Rather than just scrapping the obsolete tanks, I hoped to at least get some use out of them.

"Yes, Chancellor."

With that, we were through with the technical challenges facing the army. On the administrative front, we were hitting our recruiting targets. We were also gradually building up the reserves to an acceptable level, although we certainly weren't in a position to launch a reprise of the Great War.

News from the navy was more or less as expected. Building an aircraft carrier was a unique technical challenge. Even working off the guidance provided by the Akitsushima Dominion, our first carrier wouldn't be complete for another year or so. The first of our newly designed destroyers was also still in the early stages of construction, albeit for less technical and more bureaucratic reasons.

Once the navy had taken to heart my directive that the number of ships they could buy would be driven by the number of ships they could afford given their allotted budget, they had launched a series of redesigns on the destroyer. It had warmed the penny-pinching portion of my soul to see them put so much effort into streamlining and modularizing the build process in order to bring down the cost. Sure, it was a little ridiculous that a relatively simple ship was taking so long to build, but it wasn't like we had any pressing naval commitments.

The new sub had exceeded my expectations by putting to sea and, so far, not exploding.

Of course, the actual effectiveness of the navy as a fighting force would rest on the work of the weapons development group. General Thiel's report on that topic was heartening. The hydrogen peroxide based propulsion system used in our new submarine had proven well suited for the new generation of torpedoes. Crews working with them would have to undergo rigorous training, but it was nothing like the submarine, which was only allowed to travel while its engine was under the supervision of the original designer. Overall, a small price to pay for a torpedo that was capable of exceeding sixty knots.

The torpedo's magnetic trigger had been tested to the point that it was almost ready for deployment. I didn't quite follow the physics, but apparently with modern ships it was more damaging to set off an explosion immediately underneath their keel than to simply ram a torpedo into their side. The team was also working on an acoustic guidance system, although that was a ways off from practical usage.

Really, the only reason not to be excited about their work was that there was no likely opponent to serve as a convenient target for all of this technological wizardry. Any conflict with the Francois would be resolved on the ground, and our little tricks wouldn't make any difference in a fight with the Allied Kingdom's navy. Still, I could appreciate that our weapons engineers were doing a good job.

The progress on developing missiles into practical weapons was less impressive. While Dr. Schugel's work had been revolutionary, it didn't provide a sound basis for others to build on. Most obviously, there was no guidance system available for missiles that weren't intended to pack an aerial mage as the warhead. The more subtle problems arose from Dr. Schugel's general disdain for safety standards. Traversing the gap from an inventor's baby to a deployed weapons system would take effort and time. I was still confident that our team would get there eventually, but I was starting to doubt that a practical missile weapon would be rolled out while I was still in office.

The weapons development team's efforts at supporting the army had also failed to yield practical fruit, at least so far. Despite some hair-raising experiments, they had yet to develop a flamethrower that was anything more than a bulky terror weapon. Similarly, while they had shown some truly creative uses of explosives, they had yet to develop a man-portable anti-tank weapon that was more likely to result in the death of the target rather than the user if deployed on the battlefield.

General Thiel's team was also working with the cutting edge of airplane technology. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they had a jet engine under development. I was less pleasantly surprised to discover that the prototype was so unreliable that some members of the team thought a rocket-powered plane would be a more practical design. Overall, that section of his report sounded like it would be a wash until the general mentioned that they had a functioning prototype of a revolver autocannon.

"Unfortunately," he concluded, "the prototype falls far short of the goal of 1000 rounds per minute."

"Wait," I said, sitting up straight, "how many rounds per minute can it fire?"

He looked down at his notes. "Two or three hundred, I believe."

Across the table, I saw von Richtoffer sit up and take notice as well. "Firing 20 or 30 millimeter shells?"

Thiel looked at him, somewhat taken aback. "That's right."

"That project should be given the highest priority," I said. "Even just mass producing the current prototype would give airplanes a much better shot at taking out aerial mages."

Breaking through an aerial mage's defensive screen with machine gun fire required a level of sustained impact that was almost impossible in a dogfight. On the other hand, a single twenty millimeter cannon shell would be enough to ring any mage's bell. Against a careless or weary opponent, just two hits might be enough for a kill.

"That's not to mention the effect against other aircraft," von Richtoffer added. "It's one thing to harden a plane against machine gun fire, but quite another to try to shrug off a cannon shell."

Thiel made a note and showed the simple joy of a child receiving candy or a mad scientist hearing praise for his work. I could only hope that the autocannon would make the transition from prototype to mass manufacture without any unnecessary explosions.

With that, it was time to move on to discuss the air force. General von Richtoffer didn't have any big surprises in store for us. The current air fleet was a solid first effort, as he described it, but with ongoing advances in engine technology opening up new avenues of aircraft design, it was time to start developing replacement models. Once again, it was galling to retire so much military hardware before it even fired a shot in anger. Once again, I tolerated it as the cost of maintaining a modern military.

My one contribution was to insist that the air force at least develop a prototype aircraft to take on the close air support role often filled by aerial mages. The new autocannon wouldn't just be useful in a dogfight. A plane designed to loiter over the battlefield firing multiple 30 millimeter rounds per second ought to do a decent job replacing a mage firing explosive spells.

It wasn't that I wanted to put our mages out of a job, but aerial mages were just too versatile. Almost any military mission could benefit from a touch of magic. By handling previously mage-only work with newly developed aircraft, our mages would be freed up to do other things. Our Republic didn't have nearly as many mages to go around as the Empire had enjoyed, after all.

Weiss's report on the status of our nascent mage corps would close out the meeting.

He led off with a bit of bad news. The new orb was still stuck in development. I could only nod in support of Weiss's decision to deny Dr. Schugel's request to stop "babying" his test pilots. I'd push for faster development if we were at war, of course, but for now it was just fine to delay rolling out a new orb until a decent period had passed after we had sold the Americans our old orb.

"Dual core orb production is set to outpace our projections," he said, continuing his report. "Our training program is also proceeding as expected. Although..."

"Is there a problem?" General Groener asked.

I gave Weiss a sharp look. I had sent Neumann and Dr. Fischer to the Unified States with a trunk full of computation orbs and training manuals from our academy. Their mission was to have an American mage beat Neumann's time on their obstacle course, using an American made orb, as soon as possible. It would be embarrassing if a problem with our training methods made the Americans feel like I was welching on my side of the deal.

"Using a dual core orb to its full potential requires a certain mindset. It's completely different from a single core orb," Weiss explained. "A few mages pick it up right away, most are able to understand after enough practice, but some of them just aren't getting it. It looks like we may have to fail almost fifteen percent of our inaugural class."

I relaxed. If a few of the Americans couldn't cut it, that was their problem. As long as Neumann could get a few of them up to snuff, we'd done our job. Although, I was a little concerned about that failure rate. It wasn't like A and B class mages grew on trees.

"If memory serves," General Gude said, "the entire 203rd was able to adapt to the Type 97 shortly after it was introduced. Is there a reason that we can't replicate that success?"

"Well, mages do seem to adapt quickly when they fear for their lives," Weiss replied, "but this is a peace time training program."

I tapped my chin in thought. Weiss and the other members of the 203rd were good, but I didn't think I was just being conceited to believe that the two best flyers in the country weren't currently serving in the military. I glanced to the side, where Visha was taking notes while listening attentively to the ongoing discussion. Maybe the trainees would benefit from a new perspective.

"Visha," I said, "do you think you could swing by the academy to conduct a few remedial lessons?"

She looked at me, startled, then put down her pencil. After a moment's thought, she nodded.

General Gude looked uneasy. "Do you mean to have her simulate a life-threatening environment?"

I laughed at the idea that anybody would be terrified by Visha, of all people. "There's no need to simulate anything."

I saw a trace of doubt in Visha's eyes. That brought me up short. It was rude of me to load something like this on top of her official duties. Not to mention the unofficial work she put in making sure that I was eating enough food and getting enough sleep.

"You shouldn't need to do this for every class," I said, patting Visha on the shoulder. "For the first products of our new academy, though, I'd like to start strong."

She nodded again, her expression firming up. "I'll do my best."

I smiled. With Visha there to nurture their development, even the complete dunces should be able to handle at least the basics of aerial mage operations.

ooOoo

My last big meeting wasn't something I'd set up of my own initiative. Not really. When I'd received a letter from a pair of concerned physicists warning of the development of a new type of extremely powerful bomb, I'd felt obliged to clear some space in my schedule.

The two letter writers, Dr. Leo Spitz and Dr. Eugene Wigner, looked a bit wide-eyed as Elya led them into my personal meeting room. They likely hadn't expected to be invited so easily into a discussion with the Chancellor. There was a distinct coolness in the atmosphere when they noticed that Dr. Werner Wecklein was already present. I didn't mind. For an important conversation like this, it was important to make sure that the theories presented could stand up to some adversarial scrutiny.

After a brief round of introductions, Dr. Spitz took the lead. He first explained that certain papers recently published in the Francois Republic suggested that they were catching up to the Germanian understanding of nuclear physics. Those papers had prompted the concern that had led him to reach out to his colleague and to the government, ultimately leading to this meeting.

As I had feared, he then introduced the concept of a nuclear chain reaction. His presentation more or less matched up with my memories from the introductory physics that I had picked up long ago from school and from a few idle evenings spent on wikipedia. It was hard to say whether the discrepancies that I noticed were the result of future scientists having confirmed or rejected his current speculations or if he, as a highly decorated scientist, had a deeper understanding of the matter at hand than I did.

In any event, his conclusion was both expected and depressing: according to the best available science, building a bomb based on nuclear fission was completely possible.

"Such a bomb could be delivered by a single plane," Dr. Spitz said, "and explode with the force of hundreds or even thousands of tons of TNT."

I sighed. "It's a shame that this world should have to suffer the existence of such a weapon."

A part of me had always held out hope that, in this world of magic, nuclear bombs might not work. On a personal level, nukes would undermine the physical invincibility that I usually enjoyed as long as I had a computation orb on me. On the national scale, I knew that developing atom bombs was horrendously expensive. Germania's economy was doing better than it had been, but it wasn't like I had a few billion marks sitting around in a slush fund. A nuclear arms race would favor bigger, richer powers.

And, I suppose, a widespread nuclear war would also be a humanitarian disaster. We'd all be better off the key isotopes all just magically disappeared whenever they appeared on this earth.

"That's not necessarily the case," Dr. Wecklein said, breaking me out of my funk. "I'm not convinced that the critical mass would be so low as to be practical for a bomb."

That led to a storm of discussion between the three physicists. The blackboard that I had set up for this meeting was soon covered with scribbled equations. When it looked like they might come to blows over possession of the last stick of chalk, I interrupted with a sharp rap of my knuckles on the conference table.

"Enough arguing," I said. "Scientific questions can be answered through experimentation, right?"

That much, at least, all three of them could agree on.

"Then the first order of business will be to investigate, and hopefully eliminate, material that might serve for a practical atom bomb," I continued. "Whether it's uranium or plutonium, I will expect a thorough examination of every possibility."

Again I received nods all around. It looked like Dr. Spitz wanted to say something, but he held his tongue for the moment.

"Secondly, we should explore the potential of this technology for power generation. After all, size constraints are far less pressing for a power plant than for a bomb," I said. "I would much prefer to use uranium to replace tons of coal, rather than tons of explosives."

I was pretty sure that operating nuclear power plants at our current level of technology would be ruinously expensive, not to mention dangerous. On the other hand, I was also pretty sure that one of the byproducts of running a nuclear power plant was material that could be used to make a bomb. I wasn't sure if the country would be able to fund the project through to fruition, but at least we wouldn't be burning money on a dead end.

"How are we to go about doing all this?" Dr. Wigner asked.

A fair question. I rubbed my chin for a moment, lost in thought. My usual style of telling my underlings what to do and letting them worry about the details probably wouldn't work as well with scientists as it would with soldiers.

Actually, I could take some inspiration from mathematics in dealing with this issue. All that I had to do was reduce the situation to a previously solved problem.

"This will have be organized as a military project," I said. "Expect to hear from a recruiter soon. Of course, if you would prefer not to participate, that's fine, but I expect that you would keep this conversation secret, regardless."

I would need to put the project under the management of a reasonably diplomatic officer with a firm grasp of logistics. Max Ugar was the first candidate who sprang to mind, assuming that he wasn't working on anything particularly important these days. I'd have to check.

The project would also need a healthy dose of espionage and counter-espionage. We'd have to keep an eye on those Francois physicists, and perhaps do a bit more than that. Well, I could leave the details to Elya.

Really, the more I thought about it, the happier I felt. After all, a nuclear bomb would be quite a deterrent. It ought to keep our neighbors from getting any expansionary ideas. As long as the costs were kept under control, I could think of it like buying a lottery ticket. Sure, it was probably just wasted money, but there was still the chance that I could retire in peace and comfort under the protection of the Germanian nuclear umbrella.

Maybe the Great War truly would be the war to end all wars, after all.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Here Tanya is finally enjoying some benefits from building up a healthy economy and not conducting pogroms on her own citizens. Note that regarding the military generally she is spending less money on overall buildup and more money on R &D compared to OTL._

 _AN3: Also, to anticipate the comments, Tanya name-dropping plutonium at this point in time will certainly raise some eyebrows if and when people look back on this conversation._


	22. Chapter 22

_AN: Diplomacy time!_

ooOoo

Taking the train to Dacia took longer than flying there under my own power. The view wasn't as good, either. On the other hand, the reception waiting for me at the end of the journey was much friendlier on this, my second trip to the country.

Dacia had been hit hard by the recent global economic troubles. It hadn't boasted a particularly strong economy to begin with, so when global markets began to slow down Dacia was put in a precarious position.

The world as a whole wasn't calling the current situation a Great Depression, but it was probably just a matter of time. The Unified States had imposed heavy tariffs shortly after my reelection. Along with the retaliatory tariffs from most of Europe, they had really done a number on international trade. The Francois Republic had seen a few bank runs recently, and even Albion's financial markets were looking shaky after the last few turbulent months.

Germania's economic outlook, on the other hand, was surprisingly good. I had negotiated with the Unified States for protection against tariffs intending simply to preserve our market share. The end result had gone beyond that, as Germanian manufacturing had surged on a rush of American orders. It made sense, on reflection, that having our closest competitors priced out of the market would redound to our benefit. Also, the steady increase in the value of the dollar due to deflation made our exports that much more attractive.

All in all, Germania was in a good position to exert some so-called "soft power." Well, perhaps that's too grandiose. Rather, Germania was in a position where I could dangle the prize of access to our market to buy our way out of being a pariah state. It seemed a little unfair that I was the one who had to make nice with a country like Dacia when they had launched an unprovoked invasion of my homeland, but I had after all killed a lot of their soldiers and set off a pretty sizable explosion in their capital.

Anyways, the diplomatic work had already been done. My personal visit to the country was largely for the purposes of public relations. A sort of goodwill tour. I'd only wind up getting some actual work done if I was lucky.

The terms of the agreement were symmetrical on their face, but it was obvious that Dacia stood to gain far more than we did from the lowering of trade barriers, just as Germania stood to benefit more than the Unified States in our other major trade deal. We had also agreed to commit to purchase a substantial quantity of oil immediately and then also over the next few years at a generous price. Dacia needed the cash infusion and Germania was going through more oil than ever thanks to the growing adoption of the automobile.

I shook myself out of my thoughts as the train gradually slowed to a halt. The local police kept the platform clear as I disembarked with my small entourage. I was gradually getting used to the VIP treatment, although to be honest I mostly just ignored that sort of thing. Still, it was strange to hear our footsteps echo as we made our way towards the station hall. Anna, Elya's promising subordinate, walked on my right hand side, while the two mages on security duty trailed behind.

Another police officer held open the door, and I entered to a round of applause from the waiting crowd. It made sense, as the broad strokes of the trade deal had been released to the public and the deal was in their favor. Still, I hadn't been expecting it. I paused for a moment to take a look around.

It was the little anachronisms that still caught me off guard sometimes, even after twenty-four years in my new life. For example, the idea that train stations should be built to impress, as they were usually the first thing a visitor would see on arriving at a new city. Even in a backwater like Dacia, the capital city's train station was an architectural tour de force. High arching ceilings, honest to goodness stained glass windows, and, of course, plenty of space for the teeming masses to pack in and crane their necks at the visiting celebrity.

The fake smile I had plastered on my face was starting to feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, it didn't take me too long to spot our ambassador to Dacia, standing together with a local official. I made my way over and shook hands, to another round of applause, before the lot of us headed outside.

I was treating this trip as something of a vacation, and the Dacians hadn't begrudged me the extra time spent in their country. The first part-day was to be spent as a somewhat high-profile tourist. My meeting with the Prime Minister and the ceremonial signing of the trade deal would take place on the second day, while I wouldn't depart until the afternoon of the third.

The tour of the city was quite pleasant. I had mostly been looking forward to some time to relax, but the capital was surprisingly full of examples of picturesque old buildings. In part, it was probably due to the relatively light damage Dacia had suffered as a result of the war. However, I suspected that a larger reason for the plethora of quaint construction was the country's moribund economy.

My suspicions were bolstered by a closer look around the streets we were passing through. Sure, there was the occasional automobile, but most of the traffic was propelled by the power of horses rather than horsepower. What's more, the limousine we had been provided, while quite luxurious, was an Albionese model. If the shoe were on the other foot, I couldn't imagine squiring visitors around in anything but a product of Germanian industry.

I went to bed that evening with a smile. I had enjoyed a relaxing afternoon, and I had reason to believe that my appeal would find fertile ground.

The next day I shook hands with the prime minister and smiled for the cameras. The two of us used a ceremonial set of pens to sign the trade deal, then handed them off to be stored away for safekeeping. With one last wave to the crowd, the prime minister invited me back to his office for a private conversation.

When the door shut behind me, I felt a grin trying to appear on my face. The straightforward, ceremonial portion of my visit was over. What remained was the part of the trip that could make or break the future of both of our countries. My shoulders relaxed as an echo of the old pre-battle calm came over me, and I had to make a conscious effort not to call up a defensive shell with the computation orb in my pocket.

The prime minister, for his part, didn't say anything at first. He busied himself with the serving set positioned along the back wall of the room, pouring each of us a cup of coffee. I nodded in thanks as I took my cup from him, noting in passing that we both seemed to prefer it straight. I took a sip as he took a seat behind his desk.

"Chancellor," he said, setting his cup down and interlacing his fingers, "I don't believe you took the time to come here yourself because you wanted a tour of the city."

I set my own cup of coffee down on his desk and took a seat on his guest chair. I cocked my head to the side and took a moment to size him up before I replied.

"Have you ever considered that our countries might benefit from a closer relationship?"

"Closer..." he said, trailing off. Then the penny dropped. "You mean a military alliance."

He didn't seem particularly shocked by the idea. He didn't seem particularly enthusiastic, either.

I nodded. "Purely defensive, of course."

"Our territorial integrity has been guaranteed by the Francois Republic and the Allied Kingdom," he said. "Why should I throw away that protection?"

I had expected a reply along those lines. On the face of things, Dacia's safety was guaranteed by the two premier European powers from the victorious side of the War to End All Wars. It was hard to imagine a more secure position. Of course, digging into the details of the situation would turn up some causes for concern.

"A fair question. I suppose I've always felt that the best security is provided by your own troops," I said. "As I recall, Dacia could field an army of 600,000 men. A formidable force, if it were properly trained and equipped. Have your guarantors done anything to help you modernize your army?"

He looked down, briefly, then took a sip of coffee rather than reply. We both knew the answer. While Albion may have offered up some arms that were better than the antiques that Dacia had issued to its troops in the last war, the powers that be had no interest in providing Dacia with any truly modern weapons.

"Besides your own strength, the best security is a friend who shares your peril," I said, choosing not to belabor the previous point. "Germania stands in the way of Comrade Jughashvili's dream of dominating Europe, just as you stand in the path of his Balkan ambitions."

If there was a better foundation for friendship than a shared hatred and fear of a third party, I had never found it.

"What do you want?" he asked.

I smiled. I was past the first hurdle. Now that we had set aside matters of principle, the only thing left was to negotiate a price.

"When the Red Army turns its attention back west, I don't want them to see any easy pickings," I said. "I'm sure you've caught wind of our dealings with our sister states."

I hadn't gone out of my way to publicize our cooperation with the former Imperial states bordering the Russy Federation, but cooperation on that level was impossible to hide. Especially from neighbors with a sharp interest in what was going on.

"You're building an iron cordon," he said, realization dawning on his face. "To contain the Rus."

"More or less," I said, nodding. "I'm not looking for a client state or a bargaining chip. I want an ally who can stand shoulder to shoulder and do his part to fight off the reds."

The cold hard fact was that I would like to have Dacians doing some amount of fighting and dying in any future conflict with the commies in order to take the pressure off of Germania. For all that, though, I wanted them to kill as many commies as possible with as few losses as possible, and I did genuinely want them to fight and win. I figured that made me a better friend than Albion or the Francois.

I wasn't the only politician who could rattle her saber for political effect. If the Russy Federation kicked up enough fuss, it wouldn't surprise me to see the western Europeans throw Dacia to the bear in order to secure another few years of peace for themselves.

"What are you offering, exactly?"

I smiled. Time to reel him in.

"Full access to our military catalog, purchases to be made on the same basis as the Germanian army," I said. "Training officers, available at the cost of their salary. That's in addition to the usual provisions of mutual defense, of course."

It was a generous offer. Most first rate nations wouldn't simply sell off their cutting edge military gear. However, I was willing to do whatever it took to get Dacia up to scratch. Or at least to quickly advance them to the point where they could present more than a speedbump to the Red Army. It wasn't like Germania benefited much from Dacia remaining a total backwater. Also, the cutting edge was always moving forward.

Perhaps it was arrogant, but I wasn't worried about Dacia keeping pace with our military development in the long run.

I could sense that he was tempted by the offer, though he did an admirable job of playing things cool. He took a moment to think before he asked his next question.

"Could these purchases be made on credit?"

"We can be reasonable. I think you'd find a credit line secured by your oil reserves could go quite far," I said. "Speaking of which, if we were military allies, our government would also be willing to invest in some infrastructure improvements. For example, a pipeline from Prahova to southern Germania could increase exports and reduce the cost of transportation."

"A generous offer," he said.

"In addition, the People's Car project has just broken ground on a second factory in light of the increased demand. However, the local area can only support a certain level of activity," I said. "As they scout locations for any future expansion, they will naturally prefer to build in friendly nations."

One problem with essentially buying an ally was that they might jump ship or even stab us in the back when presented with a better offer. There was no perfect guarantee against such a thing, but I hoped that tying our economies together would naturally pull our foreign policy preferences to point in the same direction.

For a moment I could see the light of greed shining in the Prime Minister's eyes. Then his expression smoothed out as he got himself under control.

"Even so," he said, "this isn't something I can decide right now."

"I understand. You can speak with our ambassador if any questions come up after I've left," I said, standing up and shaking his hand. "I look forward to hearing from you."

As expected, he wanted to sound out Albion and the Francois and see if he could get a better deal. I wasn't worried. When it came to this kind of contest, the Francois couldn't outbid us and Albion wouldn't care enough to bother. If he came back to try to get us to sweeten the deal, that was fine too.

The important thing was to secure some allies to help us face the dangerous world. The Empire had only had subjects and enemies. I had no intention of falling into the same trap.

ooOoo

My Foreign Minister wasn't quite as excited as I was with my success. I had dropped by his office before returning to my own in order to deliver the news. I was a little disappointed to be met with furrowed brow instead of a path on the back.

"Is Dacia worth this much trouble?" Zettour asked. "It would be easier just to raise another field army of our own. Cheaper, too."

I could understand his skepticism. Dacia hadn't exactly covered itself in glory during the last war.

"Don't underestimate the value of having friends," I said. "The drain from subduing smaller powers certainly hurt the Empire's war machine."

It was true that no matter how much effort we put in, Dacia would never be able to turn back a truly determined Russite invasion. With our help, though, they could be a real thorn in the Russy Federation's side. If we maintained our distance from Dacia, I couldn't see things ending any other way than with them as a pliant satellite of the Federation.

After experiencing the death of a thousand cuts with the Empire during the last war, I was keen on the idea of inflicting that kind of suffering on the commies during the next war.

Zettour nodded, acknowledging the point.

"Besides which, keeping our access to their oil is only going to be more important as time goes by," I said. "Not to mention denying the same oil to the Rus."

Really, the only thing more satisfying than securing a resource for myself was plucking it from the hands of communists.

"Fair enough," Zettour replied. "I hope it's worth it."

"You worry about wooing Dacia," I said. "I'll worry about the costs and benefits."

Honestly, with the world's economy in an ongoing deflationary mess, it was practically my duty to spend the government's money like water. Not to mention that any money spent subsidizing Dacian arms purchases would wind up back in Germanian pockets at the end of the day. Really, though, I thought he was unfairly discounting the symbolic value of securing a real ally, however bought and paid for.

It still felt unnatural to be giving orders to Zettour. He accepted with good grace though, simply nodding in acquiescence before I took my leave.

I found an unpleasant surprise waiting for me on my desk. Besides the expected correspondence, I also found a copy of the New Amsterdam Times waiting for me, dated a little over a week ago. From the looks of things, our ambassador had sent it over shortly after publication, but the paper had arrived while I was in Dacia. It was folded open to the editorial page, where one headline jumped out at me.

 _Germanian Invasion Force Reaches Our Shores_

A quick perusal of the article revealed a jeremiad that was impressive in its vitriol, if nothing else. Apparently, the People's Car was a product of "the Devil's Workshop" that was the vanguard of an insidious plan to undermine American manufacturing. Its low price and innocuous appearance hid a threat to everything Americans held dear. In order to preserve the dignity of the American worker-not to mention baseball, apple pie, and the Constitution-it was imperative that the Unified States revoke its trade treaty with Germania and subject Germanian goods to heavy tariffs.

The editorial's author was more impressive than the content of its reasoning. William Durand, the head of the conglomerate that, put together, made up America's second largest car manufacturer. I thought his writing was nothing more than obviously self-serving nonsense aimed to rile up public opinion against a competitor. However, I couldn't discount the influence of Durand's reputation. Arguments that left me cold might be more moving when read by somebody more sensitive to Durand's standing in the community. For all I knew, there could be angry mobs protesting outside of the People's Car dealership every day.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother to respond to something so banal. Every day there were no doubt many people upset by Germanian competition. However, when it came to our relationship with the Unified States, I felt that I couldn't be too careful. I set the paper down on my desk and stepped out of my office to talk to Elya.

"Have we heard anything recently from our man in America?"

"I don't think so," Elya said, before rifling through the files stored in her desk drawer. "No, nothing since that awful editorial. I can't believe how much nonsense gets printed in American papers."

I smiled, thinking of some of the things that had been printed in our own newspaper about the Francois. Patriotism could put blinders on even the most observant person.

"Send him a cable. I'd like to know how that editorial was received over there."

She nodded and took a note. I also grabbed the folder with the recent records from the People's Car company. Of course, I didn't involve myself in the company's day to day operations, but they made sure to send us regular copies of their internal documents. I figured I might as well go over the figures to see if they could shed some light on the situation while I waited to hear back from our ambassador.

The documents showed a steady increase in sales over time. I would have expected to see one or two sales, followed by a lot of nothing, but in the face of a depression it appeared even Americans would succumb to the allure of a cheap car. There was a sudden jump in sales following the imposition of tariffs on the rest of Europe. After that, the slow increase in sales resumed. The editorial had been printed last week. Ordinarily the sales results wouldn't be reported so quickly, but there was a note in the file stating that the American dealership had requested an early, jumbo-sized resupply.

That was odd. If sales had increased along their previous trajectory, the stock on hand should have lasted for the rest of the month. The only explanation would be if Durand's editorial had somehow increased sales.

I smiled ruefully as the penny dropped. In my last life, how many times had I heard from some meatheads in sales that there was no such thing as bad publicity? Now that I thought about it, in the modern era it was common for smaller companies to try to pick fights with their larger competitors, or even with completely uninvolved celebrities. They'd try anything, just to get people's attention.

I shook my head and set the reports to the side. I knew what Elya was going to say even as she came bundling into the room.

"The reply came from America," she said. "He says nobody seemed to care."

Of course. I could say quite a bit about the American system of government, but it did have its own sort of fairness. William Durand wasn't the cousin of a king, able to have his desires turned into government policy just by asking. If he wanted influence, he would have to buy it, just like anybody else. Buying enough influence to convince Congress to anger every farmer in America by cutting off their access to the Germanian grain market was more than even he could afford.

"He did say that he can try to reach out and placate Mr. Durand if you like," Elya continued.

"Absolutely not. That would be a terrible waste," I said. "I need you to send an order over to the People's Car project."

She nodded, pen at the ready.

"Tell them that they need to increase the number of units allocated to the Unified States," I said. "Also, tell them to hire an American ad agency to market the controversy."

"Market the controversy?"

"Run ads proclaiming our cars are such a bargain that the competition wants to make them illegal," I said, waving my hand. "That kind of thing."

I didn't like to meddle in the running of the company. I had enough of my own tasks to deal with even without trying to micromanage anybody else. Now that something like this had been brought to my attention, though, I thought the project could use a little injection of future knowledge.

"Won't Mr. Durand attack us again?"

"If we're lucky!" I said. "Thousands and thousands of Americans who had never heard of the People's Car have just been introduced to it by Mr. Durand, touting its scandalously low price. Even more will take notice if he speaks up again."

"I see," she said. "How clever!"

I shook my head. "Americans take this stuff in with their mother's milk. That's why I want them running the ad campaign."

While I appreciated Elya's loyalty, I had to keep an eye on her tendency to overpraise my actions. If I didn't have such a grounded, reasonable personality, I would have long ago lost touch with the thoughts of the common man.

ooOoo

The barrier I was attempting to build on the Russy Federation's western border would be incomplete until I could convince the Legadonia Entente to sign on. Unfortunately, they were not going to be as easy to approach as Dacia had been. Legadonia was a major regional power in its own right. Not a great power on par with the Allied Kingdom or the old Empire, but only a notch below.

I couldn't offer them much by way of military technology, and if I did they'd be too proud to take it. During the war they had only been half a step or so behind the Empire. Their relative weakness lay in their smaller population and accordingly smaller armed forces, rather than their practical know-how.

Economically, it was much the same. They weren't suffering nearly as badly as Dacia from the recession, and they weren't particularly interested in exploring a trade arrangement with Germania. Instead, their efforts were focused on roping Daneland into their orbit, so far to little seeming effect.

They also were far less nervous about their own security. While the Allied Kingdom's security guarantees to Dacia were little more than words on paper, Legadonia could rest assured that the Allied Kingdom would step in if the Russy Federation tried a northern invasion. After all, they'd already exerted themselves to free Legadonia from the domination of the Empire. Past considerations aside, the geography alone dictated that the Allied Kingdom take serious note of any major power that tried to muscle in on Legadonia.

Also, setting all of the logical factors aside, Legadonia seemed to bear more of a grudge towards the Empire, and towards me, personally, over the course of the war. I still thought it was ridiculous for them to blame me for impeding their efforts to invade my homeland, but I had grown inured to a certain amount of irrationality.

There was no denying that their scars ran deep. Dacia had suffered a humiliating defeat, but it was quick and relatively bloodless. Legadonia had suffered through years of bitter fighting. Their ability to punch nearly up to the Empire's level had prolonged the war, extending the time of operation of the meat grinder that was trench warfare. And then, after all that effort, I had kicked in the back door and opened the way to Osfjord, rendering all of their struggles meaningless.

All things considered, I supposed it wasn't too surprising that they were still upset.

Still, I kept chipping away with repeated diplomatic overtures. It took another couple of months of effort, but they finally agreed to allow a visit. They still weren't interested in striking an agreement of any kind with Germania, but they were at least willing to allow me to step foot on their soil in the spirit of reconciliation. It did cross my mind that they might intend to do something dramatic to have their revenge, but I didn't think they were that reckless. Even so, I made doubly sure to pack my computation orb for the trip.

Other matters had been proceeding smoothly. Zettour's efforts to woo Dacia were slowly but surely coming to fruition. There were only a few details to iron out before the Germanian Republic could announce its first official military alliance. In domestic affairs, Germania's economy was still humming along. I was starting to think that we might dodge the depression entirely. No matter how strictly rational I might be, though, even I didn't dare to jinx things by expressing that thought out loud.

The People's Car had seen a dramatic and sustained increase in sales to the Unified States. The vast majority of our cars were still sold in Germania and we held only a tiny sliver of the American market, but it was still far more than I had ever expected. Now, when analysts made charts of the American market, the People's Car merited its own tiny slice of the pie rather than being folded into the "other" category.

All in all, it just went to show that even the most mediocre product could sell once a talented marketing team jumped in. It was starting to look like the initial government investment would be paid back more quickly than I had ever expected. I was looking forward to ending the government's entanglement with the private sector. Not to mention, I was also eager to bail out of the project before our run of luck in foisting the People's Car off on consumers finally ran out.

The invitation Legadonia finally deigned to send us was rather cold, truth be told. The right to step on Legadonian soil was extended to me and to me alone, while the suggested schedule of events barely stopped short of demanding that I leave the country before nightfall. Reconciliation had to start with compromise, though. I only pushed for a few details to be changed according to my preferences, otherwise allowing the Legadonians to dictate terms.

It would have been rather impolitic to fly to Legadonia under my own power. As a result, I was subjected to a firsthand experience of Germania's commercial aviation industry. To sum up my thoughts on the trip, I couldn't wait for the passenger jet to be invented.

Fortunately, my stomach was made of stern stuff after my wartime experience, so when we finally made landfall on a small airfield on the outskirts of Legadonia's capital, I was able to step out of the plane with a steady gait and a polite smile on my face. The waiting crowd barely reacted. Well, I could hardly expect cheers. Really, to refrain from booing and from throwing anything at me was probably the limit of what I could expect as far as the courtesy of my hosts.

The Councilor of Foreign Affairs was there to greet me and to usher me into the waiting car. After exchanging greetings, we began to sound each other out. He seemed unmoved by my warnings about the communist menace, instead preferring to broach the subject of Daneland. I repeated what had long been my position on the matter: Daneland's neutrality was a benefit to both of our nations. Rearranging Germania's naval bases had been annoying, but the work was done and I was happy to have a neighbor who was not inclined to march their army out over minor border disputes.

I didn't share that last opinion, but the Councilor still wasn't happy. I didn't have much sympathy for him. I had largely been ignoring Daneland and Legadonia's efforts to seduce them into the Entente, which was favor enough on the geopolitical stage. I could hardly be expected to push Daneland into his arms after he had failed to win them over. In any event, we arrived at our destination before we could discuss anything in depth.

I followed behind the Councilor as he exited the car. The two of us were soon standing in front of a memorial for the Legadonian soldiers who had died during the Great War. I kept my head down and my eyes fixed on the wreath that one of the Councilor's aides had given me, spending a moment in thought.

The Legadonians might not believe it, but I truly did regret the deaths caused by the war. It was a senseless waste of human resources. Even if the Legadonian soldiers had been trying to kill me, it wasn't as if they had chosen the war. It was their leadership who was responsible for what had happened. As always, it was politicians who created a mess, and soldiers who fought and died as a result.

When the moment of silence passed I set my wreath on the memorial without reservation, hoping that I could avoid causing such a wasteful loss of life in my own role as a political leader. The constant clicking of the media's cameras disturbed the solemnity of the moment, but that was an inescapable component of what was supposed to be a public ceremony of healing.

I was less sanguine about the next monument we visited. This was a memorial for the deceased members of the Legadonian resistance. The resistance had coalesced as the war ground on. The Imperial occupation had grown harsher as time passed, while the Imperial garrison had been stretched thin by the need for soldiers elsewhere. It was inevitable that some sort of resistance would pop up. Still, the men involved had been little better than brigands and murderers. They ignored the laws of war and the laws of peace, and I considered their deaths to be both appropriate and effectively self-inflicted.

Unfortunately, diplomacy demanded that I keep my opinion to myself. I gritted my teeth, held my silence, and placed my wreath at the appointed spot.

The final spot on our memorial tour had been included at my insistence. Also at my insistence, there was no media present as the Councilor and I slipped out of sight, transferred to a nondescript automobile, and proceeded to the military cemetery located in the neighboring town.

The simple layout of the cemetery made it easy to find the plot that I was looking for. We came to a halt, the Councilor hovering nervously at my elbow while I studied the simple grave marker in front of me.

Mary Sue.

I'd been too out of it to notice at the time, but there had been quite the low-key international to-do after her death. She had never fought under the banner of Legadonia, so she was technically unqualified to be interred in their military cemetery. On the other hand, the Unified States had only tolerated her in order to have a weapon to point at me. With the war over, the Americans wanted nothing to do with her remains. In the end, the Legadonia Entente had elected to make an exception and bury her next to her father.

It was easier to be gracious when her trademark collateral damage hadn't killed hundreds of your troops.

I wasn't sure what I had been expecting. I didn't feel any anger at revisiting an old foe. It was hard to carry on a grudge against someone long dead. Nor was I feeling any particular satisfaction. Not after I had been forced to such a humiliating extreme in the end.

Instead, I found myself experiencing a sort of quiet melancholy. There was only one other person in the world who had first hand experience with Being X's manipulative ways, and the absurd reality of war had forced us to duel to the death.

In our first encounter, she hadn't particularly stood out. A skilled rookie who survived where much of her flight didn't. I only learned about that first battle because I had gone back and looked it up after our later encounters.

By the second time we fought, Being X had his hooks in her. Her magical ability had increased greatly, as had her thirst for blood. She still had the capacity for rational thought, but not nearly as much interest in using it. I suppose it was a fair trade from her perspective for the ability to go toe to toe with the Type 95. As time went on, the effects of whatever bargain she had made with Being X became more and more pronounced.

I sometimes wondered, if I hadn't kept my memories but just my personality, whether I would have made much heavier use of the Type 95. The euphoria of channeling that much power was better than any drug I knew of, not to mention the practical utility. I'd like to think that I would have noticed something amiss before I was molded into a mindless crusader, but it was hard to say for sure.

Even if I had kept my memories, if I had never met that bastard Being X, I might have been willing to praise a hypothetical god with such a payoff as my reward.

There but for Being X's lack of grace, go I.

I thought she figured it out, in the end. When I had finally knuckled under and offered a sincere prayer to Being X, it didn't just increase the power available to me. The magical power she was using dropped almost immediately to a more human level. I thought I saw a glimmer of understanding in her eyes in that moment. I would have liked to ask her about it, but by that point I had already committed to the attack that would vaporize her upper body and redraw a few obscure alpine maps.

Years of devotion, and Being X tossed her aside like an old toy once she'd served her purpose.

I sighed. Next to me, the Councilor startled, then cleared his throat.

"Chancellor?"

"God can lift someone from obscurity and fix her in the heavens," I said. "And God can knock her down from the pinnacle to bury her in the mud."

I had long since submitted to the necessity of referring to Being X by his chosen name with other people. I still chafed at the indignity.

The Councilor was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was tentative.

"Do you think the Great War was part of God's plan?"

He just about jumped out of his skin when my initial response was a bitter laugh.

"I think that when humans make plans that rely on God's backing to succeed," I said, "we're capable of creating quite enough trouble on our own."

The Legadonia Entente had decided to get into a military pissing match with the Empire. In turn, the Empire had decided not to seek any serious peace negotiations until after it had defeated every foreign army on the planet. Each nation was implicitly relying on divine intervention in order to succeed. Loathe as I was to admit it, the ensuing misery could not be laid on the shoulders of Being X. He hadn't done anything. The fault lay with the idiotic human beings who thought that Being X would cover for their own inadequacy.

Human flourishing was grounded in rational consideration and sober decision making. Pray to be spared from flood? Absolutely not! Build levees, or change the course of the river if need be. In matters of life and death, it was madness to try to court Being X's favor.

I would leave that to others, while I focused my efforts on building a foundation for success on the basis of rational thinking that would be sufficiently resilient to withstand one of Being X's temper tantrums.

ooOoo

 _AN2: The progression of the Great War in this AU:_

 _Canon up through the fall of the Francois Republic._

 _Inconclusive fighting in Africa (Tanya), garrison duty (Army), and a blockade and naval warfare (Navy)._

 _The strain of the war forces the Empire to give up on not!Africa and pull back._

 _Escalating blockade, counter-blockade, and submarine warfare eventually results in the sinking of American shipping by the Empire. The US joins the war._

 _Resistance movements spring up, supported by foreign arms and foreign mages._

 _Tanya's first few encounters with Mary Sue would have been related to her support for the resistance._

 _The US and AK make a landing on the coast of the Francois Republic. There's a big fight between Tanya and Mary Sue. Lots of invaders die, but they establish a beachhead and resist all Imperial efforts to push them out._

 _The reconquest of Francois is a slow, grinding affair compared to our WWII. Still, the US and AK make constant progress._

 _After a big fight in which Mary takes out a lot of Americans, she doesn't show up on the front for a few weeks._

 _Ildoa joins the war against the Empire. The 203rd is shipped down to the border. The top brass harbor the wild hope that they can reprise their Dacian exploits. Instead, they find Mary Sue spearheading the invasion force._

 _In the final battle, Tanya defeats Mary at the cost of heavy injuries to herself. Every other mage involved in the larger battle is severely roughed up just from their proximity to the fight. The 203rd is able to retreat in good order, but they're out of the war for a while._

 _While they recuperate, the order comes through to turn over their orbs and remain in place to surrender to the invading forces. The orbs are stockpiled in a central location (later visited by Dr. Schugel). The 203rd is processed by the Ildoans, their weapons are confiscated, and then they're sent home. Tanya is stuck in a hospital in newly created Osterry for a while before she can get a train ticket to Berun and try her luck at finding a place to stay._


	23. Chapter 23

_AN: I always have fun writing the Albion POV scenes._

ooOoo

Most citizens of the Allied Kingdom, if pressed, would admit to a certain distaste for Tanya von Degurechaff. This could largely be put down to the vague sense of unease that traditionally arose whenever a major continental nation stumbled into competent leadership. Commander Ian Flemons, of the Office of Naval Intelligence, was one of the few in Albion who bore a personal, albeit petty, grudge against the Germanian Chancellor.

Flemons had been too young to enlist at the outset of the Great War. He hadn't turned 18 until after the fall of Parisee, and his visit to the recruiting office had taken place while Degurechaff was busy kicking the Frogs around in the Southern Continent. He'd been as surprised as anybody when the standard battery of tests had revealed that he was a Class B mage.

His test results, together with his academic grades, had opened up new doors to him, of which he found intelligence gathering to be the most enticing. It might not have quite the thrill of open magical combat, but it was exciting in its own way and offered the opportunity for one man to make a difference in the fate of nations.

He had put in a good effort during the war, and been promoted accordingly. His magical skills had come in handy during the excitement of the liberation of the Francois Republic. After the war he'd been rewarded with a posting in the Caribbean, liaising with his American counterparts during their fleet exercises and with a series of women during their tropical vacations.

Then Degurechaff was elected Chancellor. Some clever silly decided that Flemons would possess some sort of insight into her character due to his magical abilities, and so he was transferred back home to manage Naval Intelligence's Germania Desk. In the process, he'd traded in the tropical sun for a desk in a dreary office in a dreary building on a dreary street. To top things off, he had very few successes to his name despite years of trying.

It had been a frustrating experience, especially as he'd cut his teeth running rings around the Imperials during the war. He had a good feeling about today, though. He was hoping he would finally get some solid intelligence on the Germanian naval building program. His first attempt had fizzled out when the welder he'd bribed had been fired after getting into a bar fight. His second attempt had been stymied when his local handler had been kicked out of the country over a technical problem with his visa. His third attempt, well, the news should be in the envelope on his desk.

Flemons opened the envelope carefully, only a slight trembling in his hands betraying his impatience. He skimmed over the letter inside, and then couldn't help but punch his desk in frustration. Unfortunately, his outburst was enough to bring his boss wandering over.

"Why the long face, number seven?"

Rear Admiral John Godby, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence. His hair might be more white than grey, but his eyes were still sharp. He was a bulldog when he latched on to an idea, never letting go until he had seen it through to his satisfaction. That was all well and good when he was picking away at a flaw in the enemy's plans. Unfortunately, he brought a similar disposition to his interpersonal relations.

When Flemons had first joined the office, Godby had introduced him as "my new seventh in command." He was so pleased with his own wit that he continued to use the nickname no matter how Flemons rose in rank or seniority. Still, there was no future in telling your superior he was being an arse, so Flemons bit back his first response and focused on answering the question.

"Our latest run at those shipyards ended in a jail cell, I'm afraid," he said.

"They're putting an espionage case through the courts?" Godby asked. He sounded surprised, as well he should. Most nations preferred not to air their dirty laundry in open court.

"Not exactly," Flemons replied, handing over the letter for Godby to read.

Flemons's agent had been rousted by the local bobbies and convicted of being a Peeping Tom on the testimony of a local girl. It seemed the Germanians had developed a sense of humor to go along with their surprising competence in counter-espionage.

"Well, I daresay we've exhausted Jerry's patience," Godby said. "Let's put that project on the back burner for now."

"Just as well," Flemons replied. "I was about ready to try sneaking over there myself."

"Save that nonsense for the penny dreadfuls," Godby said. "We know well enough what they're building, there's no need to see it with our own eyes just yet."

Flemons nodded, though not without some reluctance. The Germanian foreign office had sent over sketches of the ships they were building, complete with estimated dimensions and final displacement. It was more than they were obligated to do under the treaty, which naturally raised suspicions. Flemons wanted to get some first hand pictures that weren't laundered through the Germanians, just to see what they were up to. He consoled himself with the thought that they'd inevitably get a look at the ships once they were put to sea.

"After everything I heard from the old guard," Flemons said, "I didn't expect the Germanians to be so on top of things."

He wasn't the only one with experience outfoxing the Empire. Everyone else that he had spoken to for advice upon being given his new assignment had been confident that he would have no trouble pulling the wool over Jerry's eyes.

"Well, some will say-oh, thank you love," Godby said, interrupting himself as the office secretary, Claire Blanchet, came around with tea.

"Of course, Admiral," she said with a smile. "Commander?"

"Yes, please," Flemons said, gratefully accepting a cup, prepared as always to match his tastes.

Miss Blanchet was a lovely girl with a sterling background and a winning way about her. She had turned down Flemons's advances with such a deft hand that by the end he'd been half convinced it was his own idea not to pursue an office romance. He and Godsby fell silent for a moment as they watched her saunter back to her work station by the front door.

Godby shook his head and turned back to face Flemons, who for his part was forcibly returning his attention to the frustrating dilemma of why he couldn't get one over on the Germanians.

"Now, some will say Jerry saves all his creativity for battlefield tactics, and there's some truth in it," Godby said. "Pluck a teenager off the streets in Berun, and odds are he can lead a rifle team on a flanking counterattack, just like the General Staff drew it up. Introduce that young hero to a pretty girl from Parisee, and in six weeks she'll be running his life. Probably carrying on an affair the poor bastard will never discover."

Flemons thought back to some of the girls he'd met while on station in Parisee. He thought two weeks was a more reasonable estimate.

"That said, in a nation of tens of millions of people," Godby continued, "you have to expect that a few of them break the mold."

"So the right person just got promoted?" Flemons asked. It seemed like pretty rotten luck for such a thing to happen just as he took the job.

"No, my boy," Godby said, chuckling, "she was elected."

Flemons couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. He knew Degurechaff was no fool, but if ever there was someone whose genius was limited to the battlefield, it was her. Sure, she had the feel for a good turn of phrase-he'd had to read every one of her speeches that was published in the Germanian Workers' Party rag-but he'd never seen any evidence that she was a subtle thinker.

"I forgot, you're so young," Godby said. "You weren't here for the illusion gap excitement."

"The illusion gap?"

"It was when we finally got hold of good recordings of the 203rd in combat. Bloody terrifying," Godby said, shaking his head. "We'd known about the speed and power, though reading a report is quite different from seeing it with your own eyes. The real kicker were the illusions. Three times out of four, any shot that actually hit the 203rd was just hitting a projected decoy."

Flemons frowned. "Aren't illusions a basic technique?"

He recalled learning how to create optical illusions during his first week with a computation orb. He'd gotten the hang of it quickly, then put the skill away in favor of learning far more vital spellwork like aerial maneuvering and protective shields.

"You sound like the inquiry board," Godby said. "It's simple enough to summon something up on the ground to amuse the lads or impress a girl. Flying through the air in the middle of a dogfight and spinning out an image that will trick the enemy is another matter entirely."

Flemons nodded, acknowledging the point. Come to think of it, during his limited experience in combat he had been quite occupied with flying through the air, keeping himself alive, and trying to shoot the enemy. He hadn't had much thought to spare for anything beyond the basics.

"Degurechaff's clever, then."

"The steel nerve of a soldier and a con man's eye for a mark," Godby said. "That's Degurechaff, and that's the people who work for her."

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Just keep plugging away. If the shipyard's sealed up tight, maybe we can get a peek at some airfields," Godby said, shrugging. "Nobody's perfect."

Flemons nodded, resolving to take another look over the publicly available information he had collected from Germania. There ought to be some kind of clue, a lead that would let him sniff out something she was trying to keep hidden. However smart Degurechaff might be, she couldn't be watching over the whole country all the time. His past failures were his own fault, for thinking that his old tricks would keep working forever.

"I told those stuffed shirts when she was elected. We couldn't keep doing things the way we did when we were always up against some von or other who got the job on his family connections," Godby said. "Nobody listened, and now that we can't just read her mail there's a panic any time she does anything. I might just put in for early retirement if I have to sit through one more meeting about Dacia."

"Dacia?" Flemons asked. He remembered that Degurechaff had visited the country, but the only thing that had come of it was a rather innocuous trade deal.

"Degurechaff's pulled out all the stops to secure a military alliance, and it looks like she'll get it," Godby said. "The question is why."

After reading a steady diet of Degurechaff's speeches over the last year, Flemons had an answer ready to hand.

"Part of her grand anti-communist alliance?"

Godby waved his hand dismissively. "That's what she'll say. It's nonsense, of course. She knows better than anyone just what Dacia's military is worth in a fight."

"She could build them up," Flemons said. The records they'd captured after the war had shown she'd done well enough building the 203rd up from nothing. She wouldn't be giving the Dacian troops the same level of personal attention, of course, but the woman understood how to train soldiers.

"Building up her own army would be faster and cheaper. And it would be her own army in the end," Godby said. "There's the notion that she wants the port, but she wouldn't be able to get any warships through the strait."

"Not unless she intends on taking it by force," Flemons said, then paused for a moment in thought. "Though that seems a bit much, even for her."

"Precisely," Godby said. "Personally, I think she wants to secure the oil."

"Not much of a supply in Dacia, is there?"

He didn't have the figures immediately to hand, but he knew that the Dacian oil fields weren't a patch on the Americans'. Perhaps their productivity could be increased with new technology, but that seemed like rather a lot of trouble for Germania to go through when they could instead just buy more oil from elsewhere.

"No, but right now Germania gets substantially all of her oil from the Unified States," Godby said. "If someone were to impose a blockade, even a small bit of oil transported over land would let them keep the lights on."

Flemons frowned. What Godby was saying had some truth to it, but it just didn't fit with everything else Degurechaff had done. In all of her public statements, the woman had hardly said a word about the Allied Kingdom. She'd curse the Francois all day and night, but she was largely silent about the nation whose late entry into the Great War had doomed the Empire. Even when she'd acted against the Allied Kingdom's preferences, as with the Osterrian plebiscite, she hadn't actually acted until Albion had withdrawn its objection. Was all of that a massive bluff, with her true motive standing revealed by her alliance with Dacia? Not impossible, but it seemed unlikely.

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a map of the continent. He spread it out on his desk and spent a moment tracing over the borders with his eyes.

"You know," he said, "if she thinks she has the rest of the Empire in her back pocket, Dacia would be the next place to expand."

Godby frowned, looking over the map from his side of the desk.

"Quite right," he said. "Start with some financial aid, then send in military advisors, and one way or another it turns out your puppet is running the country."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," Flemons said.

Godby favored him with a wry smile.

"Yes, well. I suppose your theory is as good as any. Write it up in a memo, and I'll send it around," he said. "Make sure you hold on to a copy in case you turn out to be right."

Flemons held in a sigh. Perhaps in a few years he would have a new feather in his cap. For the moment, though, he was going to be working another late night.

ooOoo

Shortly after returning from Legadonia, I was dragged out of Berun on a more pleasant diplomatic mission. The inaugural class of our new aerial mage academy was graduating. Somebody had to give an inspiring speech. Visha insisted that I was the only one who could do it. She was far too biased to be trusted, of course, but I was happy for the excuse to get out of the office.

After a pleasant trip out to the countryside, I found myself standing on a stage looking at a crowd of young mages who were hanging on my every word. It felt like I was giving a mission briefing to the 203rd, back before they became routine.

I glanced to the side. Visha was standing next to me, wearing the unadorned flight suit that had served as her uniform while she was training the cadets. I was dressed similarly, in the hope that I would be able to get some flying in after the event. It was fun, on our way in, to watch as the students spotted Visha, started in recognition, and scampered out of her way. Usually I was the one who provoked that reaction.

I pitched my voice to make sure it wouldn't carry beyond the stage. "Did all of the remedial students make it through your training?"

"Yes," Visha said, her voice a little emotional. "There were a few close calls, but they all pulled through."

As expected, Visha had put in a heroic effort in order to give her students the best possible chance to succeed. It was hard to believe she was the same person as the little corporal who had to tag along behind me just to survive on the Rhine. At some point along the line, she'd grown up.

"That's a relief," I said. It would have broken her heart to have had to flunk out a student and deny them the chance to learn from experience the way that she had.

I pulled my attention back to the crowd in front of me and stepped to the front of the stage. It had been a little while since I'd had to rile up a live audience, but I still remembered the gist of it. First, speak from the diaphragm. Second, flattery.

"Congratulations!" I announced. "With these wings, you are no longer cadets. You are now aerial mages serving the Germanian Republic!"

I held up the aerial mage badge that graduates from the training course would be entitled to wear on their uniforms, a simple design in silver depicting a pair of wings supporting a computation orb. Training had been made much more rigorous, so it was only fair to award some kind of recognition to those who passed. As expected, my grandstanding brought a round of applause from the crowd.

"You have experienced the best training in the world. You will be issued the best computation orb in the world," I continued. "Those of you who go on to become officers will command the best mages in the world. All of you will have the privilege of flying alongside the best mages in the world."

That elicited another enthusiastic cheer. Everybody loved being flattered. I could have kept going in the same vein, but considering that these mages had volunteered to serve in the armed forces, I thought I owed them some honest warnings. It wouldn't do to have any of them claiming they had been recruited under false circumstances.

"Sadly, nothing is free in this world," I said. "Much has been given to you. Much will be expected from you."

They seemed to interpret this as just another lead in to a talk about how terrific they were. I couldn't help but smile at the naivete.

"You will take on the most difficult missions. You will fight in the most dangerous conditions," I said. "Your reward for a job well done will be another mission, just as perilous as the last. Once war begins, you will no longer be permitted to quit. You certainly won't be allowed to die, not while you're useful to the war effort."

It felt like just yesterday that I had been roped into the military through the combination of my inborn talent and the Empire's policy of conscription. While I still felt that I had been put in a situation that violated my fundamental human rights, after taking some time to reflect I thought I could have gotten over my frustration much more easily if we had just won the stupid war.

"You will fight in every theater of conflict. You will win. Your talents will be taken for granted," I continued. "Your advice will be ignored. Your superiors will expect your tactical excellence to overcome their strategic blunders."

The crowd looked more uneasy than excited, now. I may have been a little too honest. Glancing to the side, I saw the look Visha was giving me. Yes, I had definitely been too honest. That's the problem with public speaking, once you get your momentum going there's no telling where you'll wind up.

I cleared my throat and made sure the bitterness was gone from my tone when I continued.

"Of course, I hope it won't come to that," I said. "My job, after all, is to ensure peace, or failing that to provide a manageable war."

If I could somehow line up a war in which the Francois Republic was alone against us and a few allies, even a pacifist like myself would be happy to sign up for the one-sided romp. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world would certainly gang up on us, again, should such a situation arise. Setting aside such flights of fancy, the more disturbing problem was that while I could attempt to create a situation where no rational opponent would declare war, other countries were under no obligation to act rationally.

"However, it only takes one willing participant to start a war. There's no telling what the future will bring," I continued. "Should you be called upon to defend Germania, remember this: you may be willing to die for your homeland. You may be happy to die for your friends. Your job, though, isn't to die for your country: it's to make some other poor son of a bitch die for his."

The single most important thing to consider in any battle is your own survival. Of course, you have to balance the immediate need to survive contact with the enemy against the need to survive any post combat inquiries, but that's just common sense. For some reason, the core component of my battlefield ethos was the one thing my subordinates never adopted for themselves. The new recruits, for example, just laughed at my comment, apparently confident in their own immortality.

As a battalion commander I had benefited from having so many gung-ho subordinates who were willing to get between me and the enemy. Now that I was a little further removed from the battlefield I was worried about the potential drain on human resources. Unfortunately, there was only so much I could do.

"Magic is not the most powerful tool in the nation's arsenal. It is, however, the most versatile. Almost every military mission can be carried out more effectively with the addition of aerial mages to the order of battle," I said. "While aerial mages are a small percentage of the troops marching under Germania's banner, you are a vital component of the military as a whole. Your performance will have an outsized influence on the fate of the nation."

If the recruits weren't going to take my advice to heart, then it was time to wrap this speech up. Naturally, that called for a return to flattery.

"The Empire's aerial mage program was ended by the Treaty of Triano," I continued. I paused for a moment to let the hissing die down. "Today, you become the foundation for an entirely new aerial mage force. The future of the corps is on your shoulders! The future of the country depends on the corps! I'll be counting on you."

There was a moment's pause before the newly minted aerial mages broke into enthusiastic applause. Yes, it was an easy crowd. Yes, they were obligated by our social positions to cheer. Yes, they were largely celebrating their own accomplishments. Still, I felt a warm glow as I basked in the moment. After all, everybody likes being flattered.

The glow had largely faded by the end of the ensuing ceremony, as the graduates came up one by one to receive their aerial mage badges. After spending so much time in politics, though, I didn't have any trouble keeping a smile on my face as I pinned silver wings on mage after mage. Finally, I finished with the last one and the new graduates were released to do what they had no doubt been eagerly awaiting this whole time: head out to party amongst themselves without any adult supervision.

Following the graduation ceremony, the new aerial mages were being given a week off. After that, officer training would begin for the fifty or so who had chosen that path, while the remaining half of the class would be in for more specialized practical training. Most of this group would be learning the ins and outs of marine magery. In an emergency, we could throw some wings together and expect the young officers to pick up the skill of leadership in the field, but we were aiming for a gentler, staged approach.

As for what they'd get up to over the next week, well, there were some things an intelligent superior officer didn't want to know.

I was more drained than I had expected. I begged off from the proffered tour of the academy and retreated to my temporary quarters. Visha had been given a small house on campus to use when she took on a teaching role, so it was simple enough to commandeer a bedroom and reproduce our usual living arrangement. Visha was even kind enough to requisition our dinner from the commissary.

Dinner was quiet. I didn't have much to say. Visha, who usually chattered enough for the both of us, kept biting her tongue and looking at me like a kicked puppy. There was a time when that would have worried me, but I'd learned over the years to let her work through her emotions on her own. Doing anything else would just leave me confused, at best.

She finally broke her silence when she returned to the table after putting away the dishes. "The war was hard for you."

I scoffed. That sort of attitude was understandable, if annoying, back when I was twelve. For Visha's protective instincts to reappear after all this time was a surprise.

"It was hard for everybody."

"You were always so confident," she said, eyes sparkling. "I never realized the weight of the burden on your shoulders."

Honestly, I had always found the burden of command to be overstated. Yes, if I screwed up and my incompetence got my subordinates killed, it would be a permanent mark against me. On the other hand, if my commander screwed up and got me killed, I'd be dead. A moment's thought showed which situation was the true burden. If anything, Visha had more of a claim for sympathy after I'd ordered her into combat over and over again. She didn't even have the Type 95 backing her up.

"I wouldn't have been much of a commander," I said, "if my subordinates could see me worry."

Visha smiled, though her expression was still suspiciously sympathetic.

"Was it like that the whole time?"

I paused for a moment to think. This whole can of worms had been opened up by the momentary weakness that had prompted me to reveal some of the bitterness lodged in my heart. Looking back, though, while the early years of the war had been dangerous, I had largely been satisfied with the war's progression. I had only started to sour on the Empire later, as things dragged on.

"After we'd been in the Southern Continent for a while," I said, "I began to doubt whether anybody in the Empire had a plan for ending the war."

"I remember you used to complain about how the war was going sometimes, but I never knew that it bothered you so much."

"Of course not," I said. If I had been such a blatant malcontent that Visha had noticed, somebody would certainly have had me court-martialed and executed in order to set an example. "Our job was to fight, not to second guess our superiors."

"In the end, though," Visha said, trailing off with a sigh.

"Yes," I said. "I hope I can spare those recruits from that kind of incompetence, at least."

My basic approach was similar to that of the Empire's General Staff: figure out a way to win the war, and surrender as soon as winning is impossible. The difference was that I didn't intend to play the role of the idiot on top of the chain who insisted on winning at all costs and refused to accept the inevitable. If the country ended up in an unwinnable war despite my best efforts, I planned to surrender as soon as my own personal comfort and safety could be assured.

"Just that much," Visha said. She seemed to be thinking back to my earlier speech. "You think they'll be forced to fight?"

Despite her naive appearance, Visha was clever in her own way. She'd be truly formidable if she didn't let her own emotions color her ability to analyze what other people were thinking.

"Unfortunately, yes. I will do my best to make attacking us a clearly unreasonable choice," I said. "But I can't stop other nations from doing something unreasonable."

I certainly wasn't going to attack anybody, but appeasement worked both ways. Just as I had been able to get away with flouting the Treaty of Triano without sparking another world war, I could hardly expect the rest of the world to jump in to protect Germania if one of our neighbors tried to expand at our expense. All I could do was build up a military and a web of alliances that would make any such invasion a losing proposition.

It was frustrating.

"You really don't want to send those young recruits off to war," Visha said. Apparently I hadn't done as well as I had thought in keeping my frustration out of my voice.

"Of course not," I replied.

If we went to war, we might lose. It would be a horrible stain on my record. Not to mention that I could even be in personal danger. I wouldn't put it past either the Rus or the Francois to put me through a show trial for some supposed crime against humanity. Savages.

We fell into a more comfortable silence. After a moment, Visha stood up and busied herself brewing our post-dinner coffee. I vaguely remembered studies from my previous life claiming that caffeine could stunt your growth. Even if that held true in this world of magic, that die had been cast long ago. I gratefully accepted my cup and blew across it before taking a sip.

"Those new recruits did seem young," I remarked. "I could almost smell their mother's milk."

Visha nodded. "It's a little strange, isn't it? Now we're actually older than the new recruits."

During the war, we had generally measured age by years of combat experience, rather than date of birth. Though others might have looked askance at the habit, I still thought it had made perfect sense.

Now, though, we were significantly older than most of the recruits by any measure. At twenty-four, I came in just under the age limit for new aerial mages. Visha would have been ineligible to enlist if not for her previous service.

Though I'd never really paid attention to it, at twenty-eight Visha was no longer a young girl. I probably hadn't noticed because she still looked closer to twenty than to thirty. Sometimes I suspected that heavy use of magical physical enhancement had some side effects. In any event, now that I thought about it, in this day and age it was surprising that she wasn't more focused on marriage.

"Well, it had to happen eventually," I said. "By the way, whatever happened to that man you were dating during the war?"

There had been a time, when the 203rd was suddenly called back from leave, that Visha had appeared in front of the troops with her makeup on. It had stuck in my mind because I had always felt a little guilty about interrupting her date. Obviously, that relationship hadn't worked out in the end. If it had ended badly, it might have soured her on marriage altogether.

"What?" Visha asked, her face going red. "I told you back then, you misunderstood."

She always got flustered when I asked about her personal life. I had always kept my distance when we were in the military. It was probably still bad form to pry, considering that I was technically her boss, but I didn't feel too guilty about it now that we were outside of the strict military chain of command. Besides, teasing her was fun.

"You say that," I said, "but you're blushing."

"I am not!" she protested, blushing harder. "Back then, I was called back from meeting with Elya."

Oh. Oh! No wonder she was so upset.

"I see," I said. "Well, I suppose that explains why neither of you is married."

Visha nodded, relaxing for an instant, then went stiff. "That's not right at all!"

Of course, in this day and age she would want to keep their love a secret. Germania was a relatively progressive country, but some things were still beyond what polite society would tolerate. Still, I didn't want Visha to feel like she had to hide that part of herself from me.

"I can understand why you'd want to keep things secret," I said, "but I support your relationship."

Visha didn't respond right away. Instead she paused and took a deep breath. I could almost hear her counting to ten in her head.

"That's kind of you, but there is no relationship," she said, completely calm. "Elya and I are friends. That's all."

I looked carefully into her eyes, and saw nothing but sincerity within. It seemed that I had misunderstood. How strange. Usually I had a pretty good read on people, especially after knowing them for a long time.

Well, nobody's perfect. This was still a fine opportunity for gossip.

"All right, all right," I said, raising my hands for a moment in mock surrender. "So, is there somebody you've had your eye on?"

"No," she said, shaking her head.

Perhaps she was worried that I might think she was shirking her duties if she admitted to thoughts of romance.

"I know I can be a demanding boss," I said, "but if you need the chance to win over your true love I don't mind giving you some personal time."

"That," she said, stumbling over the words in her haste to get them out, "isn't necessary."

She was blushing again for some reason. It had been twenty four years since Being X had forced me into this new body, and I still didn't understand women.

ooOoo


	24. Chapter 24

ooOoo

The next morning saw a reunion of the officers of the 203rd around the breakfast table. Koenig had been teaching at the academy since he came back from the far east, while Neumann had recently returned from America and resumed his position on my security detail. Weiss and Visha, of course, had accompanied me on the trip from the capital. It had been some time since the five of us had been gathered together, but the conversation soon fell into the old familiar rhythms.

I sipped my coffee and enjoyed my scrambled eggs while the men caught up on each other's personal lives. And, naturally, started giving each other a hard time. The dynamic had changed since last time. Weiss, having married his childhood sweetheart shortly after the war, still stood opposed to the incorrigibly commitment-phobic Neumann. The change came from Koenig. While he used to serve as the instigator for many of Neumann's bad decisions, Koenig's efforts in Asia had included the liberation of a few groups of Russite aristocrats from the gulags. Among the prisoners had been a beautiful woman who had fallen in love with her rescuer. One thing led to another, and Koenig seemed happy with married life so far.

Neumann, taking more criticism than he was used to over his inability to settle down, seized on the one subject that was always certain to distract Weiss: his son. Weiss took the bait, happy to regale us with stories of little Anton. To be fair, the kid was going through some major milestones. He had just finished his first year of schooling. What's more, at the end of year test it had been revealed that he had the potential to become an aerial mage.

Little Anton, of course, wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. What surprised me was that Weiss was on board with the idea. He even openly solicited ideas for little training exercises that would help Anton be ready when the time came for him to enroll in the aerial mage academy.

I was taken aback at the sight of a father who was happy for his son to take a job that would put him in harm's way. A little thought, though, made things clear. Weiss was applying the same logic that I had before my own enlistment. If aerial mages were going to be drafted into the army anyways, it would be better for his son to be on the officer track instead of thrown into the front lines. It might seem unnecessary, given that Weiss's position would allow him to protect his son in the event of a war, but Weiss had never been one to take chances.

Of course, while his logic was sound, it was a rather damning indictment of my own foreign policy. I couldn't just let that pass. I set down my coffee and cleared my throat.

"I expect eight battalions trained up to the level of the 203rd should suffice for Germania's needs," I said.

In other words, I didn't foresee any need to draft mages into service in the future. Besides, as the required training for mages stretched out for longer and longer periods of time, raw draftees became relatively less and less useful.

"Eight battalions trained up to our level?" Neumann said. "That's enough to rule the sky from here to Parisee."

He received a general murmur of agreement from around the table. I sighed and shook my head. It seemed complacency could take hold just about anywhere.

"You don't think the Francois will be reforming their aerial mage doctrine after Duisbuch?" I asked. "We're not the only country developing new computation orbs."

The Francois aerial mage program was an ongoing source of concern. I knew that after a debacle like Duisbuch, something would have to change. Unfortunately, Elya's best efforts had so far only been able to uncover a woefully backward and underfunded orb research center. Other than that obvious decoy, she had nothing but unsubstantiated rumors about their future plans for their aerial mages. The Francois were holding their true plans close to their chest. I could draw some comfort from the unfair leg up we enjoyed thanks to Being X's machinations, but that bastard could just as easily hand out a boost to our enemies.

"I'm afraid the 203rd's standard is going to be the bare minimum for competence going forward," I said. "The future keeps coming whether we're ready or not. Our enemies will only be growing stronger with time."

"That's right," Weiss said, somewhat to my surprise. I had expected him to defend the pride of our old unit. "To be honest, I'd like to add another year to our magic and command curricula."

"You want to turn this place into a magic university, not just an academy?" I asked.

We were already effectively giving them three years of training, as we intended to run the rookies' first year of active service as a sort of post-graduate training program. Those first hundred mages would be split into two reinforced battalions. Very reinforced, once the enlisted veterans from the 203rd were seeded in. Command over one battalion would be given to Koenig, while Neumann would take charge of the other. The battalions would then be put through an intense schedule of training exercises simulating all the tasks expected of aerial mages, incorporating as much competition between the battalions as possible.

The over strength battalions would also allow us to try out an idea that had been suggested many times during the war: a command platoon of four officers who would stay out of the fighting. In theory, it should allow for better command and control of the battalion. It would also sap ten percent of a normal battalion's fighting force. During the war, the cost had been judged too high and commanders had been pressed to master the art of leading a unit during a dogfight. Using a command platoon with the training battalions would let us test out the idea while also giving our most talented officers a chance to receive direct mentoring from Koenig and Neumann.

Once the rookie officers were judged ready by the veterans, they would be split off to lead their own battalions. Doing things this way meant that we wouldn't have new battalions ready to fight for another two years, but once they were formed they should be fairly competent.

Adding another two years to the training would mean that our mage corps wouldn't be up to full strength until four more years had passed. I would be happy to do things that way if we had time, but I wasn't confident that we had that kind of time.

In an emergency we could always draw on the pool of retired aerial mage officers in order to have battalions ready to go immediately. I really didn't want to have to do that, though. First, those men were getting long in the tooth. For a nation to recall men who themselves had sons old enough to serve back to arms was a move of desperation. It also sent the wrong message to the new recruits. I wanted them to know that if they did a good job then they could enjoy a peaceful retirement. They wouldn't have to live with the prospect of being drafted back into service in their old age.

The second reason I wanted to avoid such a recall was more egotistical. I had a certain idea in mind as to I wanted aerial mages to do their jobs. My way had proven to be effective during the war, as it damn well should have considering how much future information I had in my head when I developed it. I didn't want senior leadership to be undercutting my lessons. Sure, the problem could be resolved by retraining the retired mages, but it defeated the whole purpose of drawing on experienced soldiers if they were going to be subjected to extensive retraining. Better to start fresh, and leave the veteran mages as a civil defense reserve.

"Of course, right now we don't have the time," Weiss said, "but the current course of instruction is very compressed. I can think of more than enough material to fill up another two years. And, as you said, it's not like the duties of an aerial mage will be any simpler in the future."

I wasn't entirely sure that he needed that much time. I'd managed to whip the 203rd into shape in a month, after all. Though, to be fair, they had come into the training with some experience already. Also, the reason I had put Weiss in charge of the aerial mage corps was so that I could delegate decisions like this instead of having to think of everything myself.

The quality of our aerial mages was the one area where Germania was definitely head and shoulders above our peer nations. It would be a horrible dereliction of duty to squander that advantage due to a short-sighted focus on immediate needs.

"Get me my eight battalions," I said, "and then put a proposal together. Maybe someday we could even add civilian classes."

It was an ambitious goal, but over the last year Weiss had built up a set of lecture halls, dormitories, an athletic field, and an artillery range. That was more than some universities had. The campus didn't have the grandeur of the War College in Berun, but that was something that could be accrued in time.

Our own national school of magic. That would be something. Honestly, I'd be pretty happy if someday the world saw magic as a tool for peaceful development instead of a weapon of war. Then there wouldn't be any reason for me to be dragged to the front lines.

Once we finished breakfast, Weiss took Visha, Neumann and I on a tour of the academy grounds. I was surprised to discover that many of the trainees had not gone out and gotten drunk celebrating their graduation. That, or they were made of tougher stuff than I was when it came to powering through a hangover. Either way, there were enough of them around to fill out a pick up game of aerial lacrosse that caught my attention as we walked by the exercise field.

A few minor abuses of power later, I was out on the playing field myself. My companions had begged off, apparently not as intrigued as I was by the novelty of a magical sport.

The game itself was interesting. As I'd surmised from watching, there wasn't enough room on the field to get up to top speed. Instead, the game put a heavy emphasis on reflexes, physical coordination, and the ability to change direction quickly. It actually hit a lot of the skills that made for a competent magical melee combatant. It wasn't something that could replace our flight training courses, but I thought it could be a very useful supplement. Certainly more so than the other things trainees could be getting up to in their free time.

I seemed to have a knack for the game. I was quick enough to intercept careless passes that were sent towards my side of the field, and none of the defenders could stay with me in open flight. It had been a long time since I had been able to lose myself in the joy of friendly competition, which is probably why I didn't realize until after the third time I scored that my opponents were probably going easy on me due to my position.

It was a dilemma. If my opponents had simply underestimated me due to my age, size, or gender, I wouldn't have had a problem with bullying them until they took me seriously. With their treatment rooted in respect, though, they would probably take whatever I dished out without complaint. Only the very worst sort of boss would take advantage of that kind of situation. I waited for a break in play and called for a replacement to come on, using the excuse that I had too much work to do to play out the match.

I stuck around for a little while to watch the action together with Visha, Neuman, and Weiss. It wasn't as fun as playing myself, but it was still entertaining to watch.

"Next time I want to play, I'll have to drag some veterans from the 203rd out there," I said. "Make things more competitive."

The soldiers who had known me since before I was a national celebrity wouldn't be overawed by my presence on the field. They also weren't the type to be overly courteous in any competitive endeavor. Or, if they had been, I'd trained that out of them long ago.

"It might be," Visha replied. She sounded skeptical, which was fair. Even the veterans of the 203rd were used to putting me up on a pedestal as their commanding officer.

"I'll let the guys know the next time you plan to visit," Neumann added.

I appreciated the effort, even if I probably wouldn't be able to dig up competent and unscrupulous opponents unless a real professional league were to come into being. Even then, it probably wouldn't be appropriate for the Chancellor to participate. Well, it wasn't the first sacrifice I'd had to make in my pursuit of a safe and secure position away from the front lines.

The four of us left the athletic field and continued on our tour of the facility. Considering that the whole area had been empty fields a little more than a year ago, Weiss's efforts were impressive.

"How are the veterans fitting in here?" I asked. I was a little concerned about asking a bunch of rough and ready fighting men to act as mentors at an educational institution. I had only been willing to consider it at all because the educational institution in question was designed entirely to produce aerial commandos.

"They've been doing well. As they get older, I think they appreciate the slower pace," Weiss said. "Though there's definitely a group that are looking forward to deployment."

Building an entirely new military branch from scratch was an arduous undertaking. The veterans from the 203rd who had volunteered to help out were key to our plans. Their job for the first two years was to be present on campus to act as mentors and as assistants for the more practical classes. Once the first group of officers finished their training and we started building up our training battalions, the veterans would be spread throughout the ranks in order to help the rookies by example.

"How are we doing on the numbers overall?" I asked. My dreams of a fully professional, well trained aerial mage force wouldn't get anywhere if we didn't have enough volunteers.

"We have another hundred signed up for next year," Weiss said. "We might have a hundred for the year after. After that, not nearly as many. Right now it looks like we can expect about fifty a year in the long term. That's not much more than an informed guess, though."

That was to be expected. The first few years the academy was open, it would present a brand new opportunity to every mage between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. Once that initial backlog was processed, the academy would be recruiting from a pool of people who had rejected it the previous year, plus the people who were newly old enough to apply. The numbers from the first couple of years just couldn't be sustained. Fifty per year was a good number, though. In the long run it should give us a mage force of a little over four hundred people, more or less, depending on our attrition rate.

"Not bad," I said, as we came to a stop. We were standing at the entrance to the campus, where a modest sign announced the presence of the Germanian Mage Academy. "You've done a good job with this place."

"Thank you," Weiss said, almost as awkward as Visha when it came to taking a compliment.

"I'm sure that with such a skilled educator as his father," I said, "Anton has a bright future ahead of him."

Now that he knew not to worry about the draft, Weiss could start making other plans for his son's education. Thanks to Weiss's solid financial foundation, his son would be able to pick from any number of lucrative career paths when the time came.

"Yes," Weiss replied, "I'll make sure of it!"

I smiled. It was cute to see a normally stoic man so fired up.

I finally bid Weiss farewell and headed to the air field next door for my second piece of business. When General von Richtoffer had heard that I would be in the area, he had asked me to drop by at my convenience. The nice thing about being the boss was that I really could head over when it was convenient for me. Visha tagged along for the visit, while Neumann stayed back at the magic academy to catch up with some old friends.

We'd built up the area adjacent to the aerial mage academy into a respectable facility for pilot training and aircraft weapons testing in its own right. In time, I hoped the physical proximity would promote cooperation and cross training between mages and the rest of the air force. For today, it just made for a short trip between saying goodbye to Weiss and saying hello to von Richtoffer.

It was interesting to see von Richtoffer in his natural element. He carried himself well in staff meetings, but he seemed truly at ease on the airfield. As he led us toward the testing range, he took us on a quick detour through the hanger storing the planes that would be used on our aircraft carrier once it put to sea. They made an interesting sight, packed in tight with their wings folded away.

Seeing me take an interest, von Richtoffer took the opportunity to talk up all the work that was being done to prepare for carrier operations. I had been under the impression that the only way to practice landing on a carrier was to land on a carrier, or perhaps on a short landing strip. I was soon disabused of that notion.

It seemed that in order to land safely on an aircraft carrier, pilots had to travel at a slower speed than they would ever usually experience while in flight. Doing so would allow the plane to come to a stop once it touched down and caught the arresting wire, rather than being torn in half. Even without an aircraft carrier available, our pilots could practice flying, and landing, just above the stall speed of their planes.

All in all, after the lecture I was more grateful than before that aerial mages didn't have to put much thought into the physics of flight.

We stepped back out into the sunlight, crossed a landing strip, and soon arrived at an observation stand. Once we followed von Richtoffer to the top I found we had a clear view of the bombing range. A fresh set of markings on the field set forth the object of the day's exercise. A red circle, approximately a meter in diameter, marked the target. Around it were a set of concentric rings which, if I was reading the markings correctly, were spaced out five meters apart from each other.

Accurate bombing was at a premium for the Germanian Air Force. The Air Force was intended to fill a tactical, supporting role. In general its job would be to contest for air superiority over the battlefield and then use that superiority to help the troops below accomplish their mission. It would also be called on to disrupt the enemy's ability to move men and material by destroying railways and roads, again, in order to assist in particular battles. All of this was built on the experience of the productive uses of aerial mages during the previous war.

The Air Force was specifically not meant to take on an independent, strategic role. In other words, it was not intended to conduct massive bombing campaigns over enemy cities in order to degrade enemy industry or intimidate the enemy into surrendering. This was a deliberate decision on my part.

While I hadn't prohibited the development of a theory of strategic bombing, I had made sure that none of the theory ever made it into the Air Force's doctrine. I had a few reasons for this. Of course, the most effective tool for strategic bombing, the heavy bomber, was forbidden to us by the treaty I had signed. Even if we could elide the treaty, the only and obvious reason for us to develop strategic bombing capabilities would be to prepare for war against the Allied Kingdom, which would harm a relationship that I was trying to mend. Most importantly, though, strategic bombing just wasn't a good fit for our capabilities.

Strategic bombing was almost literally a matter of setting your GDP on fire and throwing it at your enemy in the hopes of reducing his GDP. It was a wonderful tool for a wealthy country that wanted to batter a poorer country into submission. It was not a tool meant to be used by a country like ours that was poorer and smaller than our potential foes. It would be like the Unified States choosing to develop an expertise in army-repelling border fortifications.

All of which was to say that for the bombers of our Air Force, unloading their munitions over the right city and calling it a day wasn't nearly good enough. In order to perform their role as flying artillery, they needed to hit what they were trying to hit and not hit what they were trying not to hit.

Our bomber pilots had been trained with their mission in mind, and they showed it as von Richtoffer called for the first demonstration. A squadron of dive bombers swept by overhead before lining up to take their bombing runs. Even having read the specifications for the Jonke 87, it was still disconcerting to see an 85 degree dive executed before my eyes. Visha gripped my arm in apprehension and I found myself instinctively bracing against a disaster, but despite their hair-raising approach each plane was able to pull up safely and fly away after releasing its payload. When they were done, almost all of the blue-painted concrete "bombs" had been embedded inside the innermost five meter ring.

The following demonstration was less heartening. On von Richtoffer's command, a squadron of medium bombers flew down the length of the field, each releasing its load in turn as it approached the target. The twin-engined Jonke 88 was a fine machine. It was able to keep up with our fighter planes in level flight, while carrying a significant bomb load. The level bombing tactic also allowed the bomber to sweep past the target from high above, requiring much less time in the danger zone.

Unfortunately, it was much more challenging to put a bomb on a target when you weren't able to point your plane straight at that target. The result of this demonstration had most of the red-painted concrete bombs inside the 100 meter circle in scattershot fashion. Not a great result on a clear day in the face of no enemy fire.

"As you can see," von Richtoffer said, "level bombing is still a challenge."

"In the end, it's a math problem," I said. "We'll solve it eventually."

I was pretty sure that my previous world had seen relatively accurate level bombing using the technology we had available. Worst come to worst, we could probably magic up a solution, although having to put even a C-ranked mage on every bombing crew would be a stretch.

"I hope so," he said. "It's our only practical option for delivering bombs into contested airspace."

Dive bombers, while accurate, were woefully slow. In the face of any kind of enemy fighter cover, they were dead meat unless they were accompanied by an overwhelmingly powerful escort force.

"Even the dive bombers have their issues," he continued. "They are close enough to the target to hit enemy ships or bunkers, but destroying tanks is a more difficult proposition."

The description of dive bombers as flying artillery was helpful, but of course it wasn't completely accurate. In the face of a real artillery barrage an exposed tank was dead meat. Dive bombers couldn't produce the same volume of fire or maintain it for as long. They were ideally suited to take out shipping or fixed targets such as bridges or supply depots, but asking them to put a bomb on top of an active enemy tank was a bit much.

"That brings us to a most pleasant surprise," he said, "and the reason I invited you here."

For this demonstration, a tractor was used to drag the frame of one of our twenty-five ton tanks out to the middle of the target area. Workers also set up several standing plywood targets, roughly ten meters apart. From where we were watching, the targets led from the left to right directly to the tank.

This time only a single plane was used. A Jo 87 dive bomber with oversized guns bolted onto its wings came swooping down toward the field. It looked to my eye to be flying with even less speed and grace than its unmodified cousins. Any complaints about its airworthiness, though, disappeared as it opened fire.

The noise was a continuous rumble, like distant thunder. The prototype autocannon was supposedly putting out 120 rounds per minute, but the cannons in front of us were doing much more than that. The plywood targets practically exploded as the plane moved forward. Even the tank was rocked backwards as the storm of cannon shells played over its frame. A quick vision enhancement spell let me make out gaping rents in the tank's armor. The P-25 had never been meant to withstand so much punishment coming from above. If the tank had been stocked up with fuel and ammunition then the demonstration would have been more dramatic, but even as it was, the point was made.

"Impressive!" I said. "How did it get built so quickly?"

"After the designers studied our request for a hardy, low-flying airframe capable of carrying two autocannons, they realized that our dive bomber was most of the way there," von Richtoffer said. "By taking out the dive bombing capability, they freed up enough weight for some extra armor, the two cannons, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. It flies like a pig, but it's certainly effective."

"You're going to put aerial mages out of a job," Visha said.

She sounded like she was joking, but I remembered the particular joy she had taken during the war in raining explosive spells down on the helpless troops below. Well, if building more of these planes made being an aerial mage less appealing to Visha, I'd count it as an unexpected side benefit. One of the many things that worried me about a potential war was that my able assistant was liable to quit and run off to the front lines. Honestly, I hadn't expected her to last this long in a desk job to begin with.

"Mages will still have plenty to do, I'm sure," I said, before turning back to von Richtoffer. "This will be a big help. You did an excellent job putting everything together."

It was such a delight to have a competent subordinate.

"I never would have thought of requesting such a plane if you hadn't suggested it," he said. "I was fixated on bombs as only effective method to attack the ground from the air."

One of the most useful things that I had brought with me from my previous life was my mastery of the self-deprecation dance that surrounded any successful project. Sadly, I could never brag about it to anybody.

"I was just fortunate to have experience with that sort of thing during the war," I said.

Obligatory modesty aside, it was only natural that people with different experiences would come up with different ideas. He would have been flying planes during the Great War that were armed with one or two 7 millimeter machine guns. While that was an impressive amount of weaponry compared to what the average infantryman was carrying around, it wasn't enough for an effective air to ground attack. I had seen a report during the war stating that in the absence of an aerial mage, the most effective method for an airplane to take out telegraph wires was for the pilot to carry a hatchet with him in the cockpit so that he could land and cut the wire by hand.

Aerial mages, of course, were much better off. Even when all we carried was an infantry rifle, the use of magic meant that it hit with the force of an artillery shell. Rigging an airplane to carry weapons that could hit with the same level of impact was the natural next step.

"Still..." he said. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" I replied. No matter what the context, that sort of statement was never followed by anything good.

He hesitated, glancing at Visha. He seemed to want to talk to me alone. I caught Visha's eye and nodded. If I decided this was something she needed to hear, I could always share a recording from my computation orb.

Visha, fortunately, was the most personable of any aerial mage who had ever served with me. She picked up on what was going on and suddenly remembered an urgent task that she had to complete. I excused her and she flew away back to the academy.

After she left, there was a moment of silence. Finally, von Richtoffer sighed and began to speak.

"We never had a chance to meet, during the war," he said. "I'd imagine you selected me for this position because of my military record."

That was a fair assessment. I had done my due diligence, digging into his background enough to confirm that he was temperamentally suited for command, but in the end the idea of putting the country's most accomplished pilot in charge of the air force had been the natural choice.

"Are you unhappy with what you're doing?" I asked.

He'd been out of the military for a while when I had asked him to take on his current job. He had seemed happy enough to accept at the time, but it was possible that experience had since soured him on the position.

"Not at all. It's an honor," he said. "I'm just afraid that time has passed me by."

It surprised me that he would feel that way. I had always thought of von Richtoffer as one of my more forward looking senior officers.

"Why?" I asked. Some of my confusion came out in my tone.

"Look at the Missimer Bf-109," he said. "We put the biggest engine we could into the smallest practical airframe we could build. In terms of speed and agility it would have been the perfect weapon for how I fought in the Great War."

I nodded. It was a fine plane. I wasn't sure why that was a problem, though.

"The latest design proposals, though, call for an even larger engine in a larger frame. Not as nimble, but it could climb about as well as the Bf-109 and make the same top speed," he continued. "And that's while carrying more weapons and armor. With a proper adjustment in tactics it could sweep anybody trying to fight the way I used to out of the sky."

I was starting to see where he was coming from. It was certainly true that aerial combat was a rapidly evolving field.

"And that's not even getting into the changes that will happen as more and more planes participate in every battle. I don't even know if individual dogfighting talent will matter in the next war," he said. "And now I'm blind to an innovation like this. If all I can do is build up an air fleet to fight the last war, I would be doing a disservice to the country to cling to this position."

The penny finally dropped. He wasn't worried about change in the abstract. He was troubled by the fact that I, specifically, seemed to pluck future innovations from thin air. Not just with this latest development, but throughout my military record. He, meanwhile, was stuck working things out through trial and error. Anybody would be frustrated by the comparison.

I bit my lip for a moment, lost in thought. It wasn't like I could tell him I had come up with the ground attack aircraft idea when I was reminded of an internet video I had seen in my previous life.

I could see in his eyes that he was troubled. The situation was doubly frustrating for me in that it was one of my most talented and intuitive officers who was doubting himself. I would much rather have had some of the idiots running the last war be intimidated by my record into doing the smart thing, but those old men had stuck to their old ways to the bitter end.

I couldn't let the silence stretch on much longer. I bought some time by reaching out to clasp von Richtoffer on the shoulder. Visha would say something comforting in this situation.

"I think you're doing a disservice to yourself," I said. "Honestly, the fact that you recognize that new technology calls for new doctrine puts you ahead of half of the old General Staff."

I gave his shoulder a pat and stepped back, chuckling. "Besides, can you suggest a replacement for your job who can tell me exactly how aerial combat will go in five years?"

He shook his head.

"Then why should I accept your resignation?" I said. "You're not the only one muddling along without a clear view of the future."

Even I, with my unfair advantage, was just guessing about how warfare would evolve with aerial mages thrown into the mix. Our military wouldn't have any competent people left if they all resigned the first time they failed to predict the future.

"I suppose you're right," he said with a sigh.

"I know I'm right," I replied. "You want to know why I picked you?"

He nodded, a wary expression on his face.

"It wasn't because you won so many dogfights," I said. "You were put in a brand new theater of war. You developed your own theory on how to fight. You tested and refined your theory into a doctrine. Most importantly, you taught that doctrine to other people, and they used it successfully."

Honestly, it was inspiring. I was pretty sure that if aerial mages hadn't stolen non-magical fliers' thunder, he would have been famous in his own right after the war.

"That's why I wanted you to run the air force. Not because of your mastery of tactics," I continued, "but because you were able to devise new tactics to fit the new situation. That's what I want you to keep doing as technology keeps changing."

There were eternal principles of war, but no eternally successful tactics. The most valuable resource any army could have was a leader who could adapt those eternal principles into new sets of tactics that were appropriate in new situations. A man who had done it before was more likely to be able to do it again.

He nodded, more confidently this time. We were able to put the resignation talk behind us as he showed off the rest of the recent developments in our aerial fleet and we talked over his plans for the future.

It wasn't until I was flying home with Visha and Neumann that I realized what a colossal idiot I had been.

When von Richtoffer left the military after the Great War, Germania had been forbidden from building airplanes altogether. He had traveled abroad in order to keep up with the latest innovations in the field, but for the most part he had just lived off of his family's savings. He couldn't do anything else, as working in his area of expertise was forbidden in his home country. When the renegotiated treaty opened up the skies of Germania, a position in charge of the nascent Air Force would have been appealing as a much safer option than any of the brand new aviation start ups in the business world.

Now, though, the situation was different. The market for private flight was booming. Of course, it wasn't a patch on what I remembered from my previous life, but compared to the recent past it was an amazing change. With his sterling military record and family background, von Richtoffer was in the perfect position to become a country-shaking aerial tycoon.

He just had to slip out of his military obligation with grace, first. Leaving with a black mark on his record would tarnish his ability to earn trust and build up a business in the private sector. That was why he had come up with that story about his lost confidence.

A talented man was eager to leave behind his profession of fire and death in order to make a living helping people get to where they wanted to go. With the best of intentions, I had stood in his way and taken away his dream. I couldn't imagine how frustrated he must have been.

I almost turned around and went back to accept his resignation. In the end, though, what was done was done. In a way, it was his own fault for being such a convincing actor. I would have been happy to give him what he wanted if he had just made himself clear.

Still, I felt bad. In the future I would have to do a better job of paying attention to the thoughts and feelings of the people around me.

ooOoo

 _AN: Working R &D for a boss who knows the future would be stressful._

 _AN2: For those of you curious about the ground attack plane, it's basically a variant of the Junkers Ju 87 G1. The guns would be a little smaller and tighter in to the frame. The classic "oh, Germany" part of the design is the feed that runs a belt of ammunition from the fuselage out to the gun. When it works, it means that you have several hundred rounds available instead of a couple dozen. When it fails, the results range from frustrating to hilarious to tragic._


	25. Chapter 25

_AN: I have to admit, I never thought I'd hit twenty-five chapters on this and still be going strong. This is quickly closing in on my Sakura stories for the highest word count I've put into a single narrative._

ooOoo

I was losing touch with my common sense. That was the only conclusion I could draw from my interaction with von Richtoffer. This was a serious matter. Ever since I had been elected Chancellor, I had been insulated from the day to day lives of ordinary people. In my heart, as a salaryman, I still identified with them, but that would lose any meaning if I didn't understand what they wanted and needed. I could read the reports prepared by my staff, but there was no substitute for first hand knowledge.

Which was why, one week after returning from the magic academy, I found myself standing in front of a mirror, studying my disguise. It was the last Saturday in August, summer still stubbornly refusing to give way to fall. The perfect time for a trip to the market. Of course, if everyone could tell at a glance that I was the country's Chancellor, the point of the outing would be lost.

I was aiming to change my appearance enough that I wouldn't be recognized, but not so much that it was obvious I was in disguise. I had begun by pulling my hair up into twin ponytails. A pair of ribbons held my hair in place and disguised the extensions that lengthened the ponytails to fall past my shoulders and end around the middle of my back. A simple sundress in laurel green was a departure from my usual wardrobe and added to the youthful impression that was my goal. The finishing touches were magical: a simple illusion spell switched my eye color from blue to a less distinctive hazel, while also adding some baby fat to my cheeks.

I nodded, satisfied. All I needed was a dense childhood friend and I'd be ready to co-lead an animated series.

A quiet knock on the door drew me out of my self-admiration. I glanced down the hall to where Visha was still sleeping. It was almost impossible to wake her up early on a weekend morning. She was also eye catching in her own right. That was why I had drafted Neumann into being my partner for the day's mission.

I threw open the door that led from our apartment to the rest of the Chancellor's Residence. As expected, Neumann was waiting on the other side.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Gah!" he said, taking a step back, before catching himself and patting his chest a few times. "Oh, it is you. That's terrifying."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said, taking a moment to look him up and down. With Neumann's stocky build, once he was taken out of a soldier's uniform and put on baggy, if nice, civilian clothing, he looked like nothing more than a burgher's son, almost ready to strike out on his own. "All right, you look fine. You remember our cover story?"

"You're my younger sister Tina. Our father owns a bakery on the outskirts of town. You're visiting the market, escorted by your big brother," he said, grimacing. "This feels silly."

"It's either this or you pretend to be my fiance," I said.

He paled slightly, glancing at the hallway that led to my and Visha's bedrooms. I held in a chuckle at the blatant display of his fear of commitment.

"No, no, this is fine."

"Good," I said. The two of us had been fortunate to age gracefully. By making a bit of an effort with our clothing and demeanor, we should be able to pass for almost a decade younger than our true ages. I nodded, satisfied, then pushed past him to lead the way out to the street.

We had to be a little careful on our way outside. I could just order anybody we saw to stand aside, of course, but it would defeat the purpose of an incognito trip if I were seen on the way out the door. Not to mention the embarrassment if my current appearance were broadly linked to my real identity. Fortunately, we were both veteran magical commandos, so it wasn't too challenging to reach the street without being seen. Once we were outside, we were quickly swallowed up by the bustling crowd.

I was surprised to see so many people out and about so early in the morning. Perhaps I could take it as evidence supporting the reports I'd been given touting the strength of our economy. On the other hand, maybe it was just that in this era people organized their lives around the sun, rather than their clocks.

We reached a big market square and paused for a moment to take in the cacophony of capitalism. Small stores lined the outside of the square. They seemed to be doing good business, but the most eye-catching action was was out in the square itself. Stalls stood out as islands in the sea of pedestrians, peddling all manner of wares. I found the food stall that had the longest line and dragged Neumann over to buy breakfast pastries.

As we waited in line, I decided to draw Neumann out of his shell. He had been quiet and distracted since we hit the streets.

"What did you think of the Unified States?" I asked.

He seemed surprised that I had broken the silence. He glanced around for eavesdroppers, confirming my own observation that nobody was paying us any particular attention. After a moment, he shrugged.

"It's big," he said. "You take a train ride from one side of the continent to the other, and it's all the same country."

I hadn't realized that he had seen that much of America. Some further discussion revealed that he had traveled quite a bit in search of the ideal training environment. The Unified States was large enough that he had enjoyed his pick of mountains, deserts, or deserted plains.

"Do you understand now why it's so important to be on good terms with them?" I asked. I knew there were some who thought that the Empire's defeat at the hands of the Unified States was some sort of fluke, and that there was no need to be overly solicitous towards the newest great power. Neumann had never seemed to follow that crowd, exactly, but I hoped that his trip had given him a new appreciation for the latent power of the world's sleeping giant.

"I guess," he said. "They don't seem to care much about what goes on outside of America."

We had to put the conversation on hold as we reached the front of the line. As I'd expected, it was worth the wait. Fresh baked pastry in the morning always put a smile on my face. As we ate, we began ambling aimlessly through the market square.

"They don't care at all, until suddenly they care very much," I said, pausing halfway through my apple strudel. "At the very least, I want to make sure that next time, they point their anger at somebody other than us."

He shrugged again and mumbled something that I chose to interpret as agreement. Fortunately, I didn't need Neumann to pull off any diplomatic coups in the future. It was fine as long as he understood that there were some countries we couldn't afford to offend.

Once we had breakfast under our belt, it was time to take a more serious approach to the market. It was crowded, but in a happy, productive sort of way. Like the crowds waiting in line for a Pokemon release, rather than a crowd waiting in a bread line. As we worked our way along, I kept an eye out for anything of interest.

I picked up a scarf for Visha from a boutique advertising the latest fashions from Londinium. I found a cute little wood carving of an owl, tucked away in a pile of little wooden girls, that I bought to use as a paperweight. A few other tchotchkes caught my eye and found their way into the bags Neumann was carrying as he trailed along behind me. I made sure with every purchase to make small talk with the seller, doing my best to get a picture of how their lives were going.

On the surface, it was all smiles. Anybody listening to what I was hearing would know that business was booming. Germania was back on its feet. Of course, if you looked past the surface, you could start to see the warning signs and caveats that should be mentioned along with those conclusions. Home appliances like dishwashers and washing machines were exorbitantly expensive. Even something as simple as a vacuum cleaner was beyond the means of most people. Some peddlers moved their goods by truck, some resorted to using the People's Car, but many still used horse drawn carts to bring their wares to market. Consumers, by and large, were stuck using mass transit and their own legs to get around.

Walking the streets for myself let me take in the details that were left out of staff reports. It also let me indulge my own curiosity and play the role of tourist from the future. Frivolous, perhaps, but even I couldn't focus on serious matters all the time.

I ducked inside of a toy store, wondering what I would find. The unfortunate circumstances of my second life had prevented me from familiarizing myself with contemporary toys in the usual way. From the looks of it, I hadn't missed much. Primitive dolls, primitive model cars... I saw some things that would make for interesting antiques, but not much that I thought would really catch a child's interest. Though there was one plaything that could stand up to its modern counterparts.

I plucked a stuffed animal from the shelf and turned to show it to Neumann. The fluffy dog had been styled after a Husky or Malamute and it would have been more than half my height if it could stand up on its own.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Aren't you a little old for that?"

Perfect. My disguise could use a little more accessorizing.

"Probably," I replied, before holding the toy out at arm's length. "Buy it for me."

"What a bratty little sister."

"Call it what you will," I said, smiling sweetly, "as long as I get what I want."

He shuddered, before taking the dog from me and walking up to the counter. The money he used for the purchase came from my own savings, drawn out to fund this operation. It would be annoyingly conspicuous for a young girl to throw around too much money in public, after all. It was far more reasonable for her to be wheedling it out of her long-suffering older brother.

He returned from making the purchase and handed me the stuffed animal. This presented a dilemma, as the dog was too big for me to easily carry it under my arm. Neumann was watching with some amusement, obviously waiting for me to ask for help. Instead, I was able to solve the problem by slinging the toy into a piggyback carry, resting its head on top of mine and holding the paws in place after draping them over my shoulder.

The increase in the level of fussing-over that I received from little old ladies once we were outside was immediate and substantial. I counted the improvement in my disguise as a success, even if I did have to suffer for my genius.

Neumann still seemed to have his mind on other matters. If anything, he'd gotten worse since I talked to him about the Unified States. I even caught him staring off at nothing in particular and sighing a couple times. I waited until we'd reached a relatively empty stretch of road before I confronted him about it.

I turned around and stopped right in front of him, forcing him to stop and jolting him out of his thoughts. He looked up at the dog's face, then down at me, confused.

"So, did you fall in love with an American girl," I asked, "or did you just knock one up?"

"Such a vicious tongue!" he said, taking a step back. "Even when you look like that."

I just cocked my head and gave him an impatient look. "Well?"

It was love.

My question had opened the floodgates. Neumann must have been aching to share his feelings. It didn't take long for me to get the gist of what had happened.

One of the American trainees had caught his eye with her fluency in our language. As it turned out, she had been born in the Empire, in the area now belonging to Legadonia, and had fled along with her family to America in the early stages of the war. To hear Neumann tell it, she was a talented mage, blessed with a beautiful face, a wonderful sense of humor, and a musical laugh. There were more details, but it all started to run together in my mind as he went on. A fact that did stand out to me was that he had extended his time in America for an extra month after getting the first mage up to the treaty standard just to make sure that she would meet the standard as well.

I didn't think Neumann would have admitted that last bit if he weren't so smitten as to forget he was talking to me. I didn't mind, though. Any effort to get into the Americans' good graces was time well spent in my mind, whatever the motive.

On the other hand, I wasn't as eager to learn about this girl as Neumann was to talk about her. Even when I turned around and started walking, he just fell in beside me and continued to sing her praises. Salvation came in the form of a restaurant advertising "cuisine française." I made the executive decision that it was time for lunch and dragged Neumann to the door. The need to interact with the host and our waiter would shut him up, at least for a little while.

Besides needing a few moments of silence, I was also looking forward to the food. I had been too poor to go to fancy restaurants before I jumped into politics, and once I became well known I had of necessity stuck to a patriotic diet. This was a golden opportunity to sneak in a meal prepared by somebody who was familiar with seasonings other than salt.

The restaurant was doing good business, as far as I could tell. We were able to get a seat right away, but as the host led us to our booth I didn't see many other empty spots. Surprising, considering the political state of the country. I also couldn't help but raise my eyebrows when I noticed the enormous Germanian flag that had pride of place on the back wall, just above a banner bearing the logo of the Germanian Workers' Party. I wondered whether the owner was a genuine fan of our party, or if it was a form of self-defense. Well, it wasn't my problem. I just wanted a good meal.

I settled my stuffed dog on the bench beside me and studied the menu. Everything looked good.

"So many choices. Did you get all of these recipes from the Francois Republic?"

The waiter winced. Before I could think of anything to say to smooth things over, an old man had stormed up to our table.

"These are family recipes!" he said, pointing at me and leaning into my personal space. I was quite proud of myself for remembering to shrink back. "Nobody needs to cross the Rhine to learn how to cook!"

"Is your family from there?" I asked. I was confused that a mention of the Francois Republic could spark such anger in a restaurant that was serving the food of the Francois Republic.

The old man's eyes just about popped out of his head. He looked ready to launch into a proper tirade. I had to kick Neumann under the table a few times to remind him to come to my rescue.

"Ah, Tina's a little over excited. We've heard so may good things about your restaurant," Neumann said. "She pestered father until he made me take her to town just to eat here. I think she's just curious about your family history."

I thought it was ridiculous for him to put the blame on me for this old man's anti-social personality. I forgot where I was for a moment and sent Neumann a glare that promised suffering in his future. Fortunately, the effect of my outfit held up and the old-timer decided that I was too adorable for any further chewing out. He seemed mollified by Neumann's intervention, and all too happy to share his story with us.

It turned out that his grandfather had participated in the invasion of the previous Francois Republic during the Franco-Preussian War. There, he and a local girl had fallen in love. She had followed him back to Berun and convinced him to give up his career in carpentry in order to start a restaurant. Her recipes were the basis for the restaurant's initial success and continued existence.

The only dark cloud over this storybook romance was her maiden family. They wholeheartedly disapproved of her marriage, and refused all of her attempts to reconcile. Though the owner didn't go into detail, it was obvious from the emotion in his voice that the bitter feud between branches of the family was still alive in the present. Factor in the behavior of the Francois Republic during the Great War, and you were left with a specialist in a particular cuisine who hated its country of origin.

He even threw in some unprompted praise for Chancellor Degurechaff for putting the Francois in their place. And, of course, for the general economic upswing that had saved his restaurant after the hyperinflation crisis had nearly destroyed his livelihood. His one quibble with the current government was that it hadn't burned Parisee to the ground, but he was holding out hope that it would happen soon. As I had always suspected, you couldn't swing a dead cat in Germania without hitting a fervent warmonger.

Eventually, the conversation drew to a close and our food arrived. I dug into my beef ragout with relish, while Neumann picked at his dish. I paused halfway through my meal to look him over.

"You really are hung up on this girl," I said. "I listened to all that talk, and I noticed... did you even try to woo her while you were in America?"

He sighed. "It wouldn't have been right. I was her teacher."

"To be honest," I said, spearing another bite of meat, "I have a hard time believing you would hold yourself back over something like that."

"You don't understand," he said, sighing, "she isn't like the other girls."

"What sad news for Karla, Hilda, Marlena, Dorothea, Hanna, Petra, Teresa, and Sophia," I replied, before nibbling at my food.

Neumann wasn't the most conventionally attractive soldier in the 203rd. Somehow, though, the combination of his approachable demeanor and the cachet of being an aerial mage was like catnip for a certain sort of woman. I had always kept an eye on his exploits in case he did something that endangered the unit, but otherwise there was no point in stepping in. I had been his commanding officer, not his priest.

He paled. "You knew?"

"There's more to leading a unit than just making sure you all point your rifles in the right direction," I said. "You should know that, if you're going to be teaching the rookies."

He looked at me like a kicked puppy. I sighed. I could let the subject lie while we finished our lunch. The food was good enough to deserve my full attention, anyway.

When we were done eating, the mood had changed. I didn't feel like needling Neumann any more. Actually, after such an active morning and a big lunch, I felt like taking a nap. I fought through it, slinging my stuffed animal back over my back and skipping on ahead of Neumann as he trudged on down the street.

It took a couple of blocks, but I started feeling more alert as I got my blood flowing. I wasn't looking for anything in particular in the stores that we passed. I'd already bought what I wanted to buy, and Neumann could only carry so much. I came to an almost involuntary stop, though, when I saw a signboard displaying a word that I recognized only thanks to my previous life.

"What's this?"

I could puzzle out the meaning of the word "television," and of course I knew what a "parlor" was. Putting them together, though, struck me as strange.

"This, young lady, is the future!" the man standing by the door said. He looked well-fed, and happy to have a potential customer. "Inside is a device that can display images from hundreds of miles away! A football game being played in far off Leipsic can be watched from inside this very building."

I hadn't been paying much attention to the development of television. I knew that it was possible to transmit low-quality video over the air, but that television sets were prohibitively expensive. The mass medium of choice was radio, and had I been trying to win in the last elections it would have been radio ads that were worth buying. As far as I knew, Germania didn't even have regular television broadcasts.

The idea that people would pay to sit in a room and watch television had never occurred to me. I was face to face with a pioneering entrepreneur. A man trying to make a living on the cutting edge of technology.

I looked at Neumann as he caught up with me. He took one look at the expression on my face, sighed, and paid for an admission for two to the television parlor.

Inside I found one of the most surreal sights I had witnessed since my reincarnation. Around twenty chairs were arranged stadium style, each row carefully elevated above the row before it. The focal point of the room, the star of the show, was a massive cabinet placed against the back wall. A glass screen took up a minuscule fraction of the cabinet's surface area. It couldn't have been more than twelve inches to a side. The flickering display barely allowed me to make out figures that were probably football players.

The room was almost full. Neumann and I slid into the last two seats in the back row. Most of the people in the room were staring at the screen in rapt attention, but the man next to me glanced over and offered a friendly smile as I took a seat. He was old enough to be my father and was wearing a threadbare scarf proclaiming his allegiance to Beruner SV.

Our location in the back row meant that nobody would complain over the positioning of my stuffed dog. It also meant that it was hard to make out what was being displayed on the screen. It didn't help that I had only a vague understanding of the structure of competitive football in Germania. Fortunately, the man seated next to me seemed to regard me as his cute little niece. He was happy to explain what was going on.

I'll admit, I didn't believe him at first when he told me that Germania didn't have a professional football league. I knew football was popular. Just the fact that somebody was willing to go to the expense of televising a game spoke volumes. Despite that, my guide insisted that all of the private football clubs in Germania were in amateur leagues, organized by geography. The only national competition was a single elimination tournament that took in the top finishers in each district and crowned a Germanian champion.

Most of the people in the room were supporters of Berun's top team. Beruner SV wasn't playing in today's game, but the two teams that were playing, VfB Leipsic and Dresdner SC, were the top threats to our spot in the national tournament. The only threats, to hear my neighbor tell it.

That prompted the man sitting in front of me to turn around. "That's only until the Railwaymen come back, of course."

"Who?" I asked.

"The team out of Posen," he replied. "Say what you want about the Pules, those boys can play."

I looked at my neighbor for clarification.

"Pullska is part of our league's territory," he said, "and their best teams are good enough to compete for a spot in the tournament."

"But Pullska is a separate country?" I said, not sure why I was putting it in the form of a question.

That prompted a round of laughter from everybody nearby.

"Now that the Chancellor has brought Osterry back into the fold," my neighbor explained, "regaining Pullska is just a matter of time."

As usual, the common man had no feel whatsoever for diplomacy. Although, to be fair, he could just be taking his cues from the Empire's wartime leadership. I still wasn't sure why so many people were surprised that conquering our neighbors had made the rest of the world upset.

Unfortunately, I couldn't offer my own opinion unless I wanted to break character. I braced myself internally. I'd already resigned myself to playing the cute little girl, but now I was going to lean into the role harder than I'd had to since that first trip to Dacia.

I took a deep breath. "Papa said the Francois Republic might invade if Germania expands any more."

He responded by reaching out and ruffling my hair. "Let them come! Argent Silver will give them another hiding!"

Everywhere I went in this city, it seemed, people wanted a war with the Francois Republic. The country had really dodged a bullet by putting a reasonable person like me in charge.

I glanced around the room. A full house of paying customers just to watch a tiny black and white television screen. Brand new People's Cars parked outside, no doubt their owner's pride and joy. It was an important reminder that, while Germania was richer than it had been four years ago, it still wasn't particularly well off in an absolute sense. Compared to the countries I knew from my past life, this was still a poor place, full of warlike people. I'd do well to keep that in mind in the future.

Once everyone finished expressing their enthusiasm for another war, the conversation fell into a lull. I did my best to put my misgivings on the back burner and follow what was happening on the screen. There was a flurry of action, and the crowd around me reacted before I realized the ball had hit the back of the net.

"Schneider! That's why he's going to Ildoa!" the man next to me said, slapping the chair ahead of him for emphasis.

"He's leaving the country?" I asked.

I could certainly understand why he would want to leave if he couldn't get paid to play in Germania. The spirit of amateurism was no substitute for a steady paycheck.

"What?" he asked. "No, no, he's on the team that will play for the world championship."

Of course. The World Cup. It had slipped my mind. The first World Cup had been held around the time that I first became Chancellor. With everything else going on, I hadn't paid it much attention. Germania was still an international pariah back then, so we hadn't even been invited to participate.

We had thrown out a token bid to host the next World Cup, but hadn't gotten very far with it. The organization running the tournament was based out of the Francois Republic, so we never really had a chance. The good news was that our team had at least been invited to participate as a token of goodwill. They had a chance to do well, especially if you believed the chatter from the men around me. With less than a year to go before the tournament began, I'd see the truth for myself soon enough.

I watched the rest of the game in contemplative silence. I had never been a big sports fan in my previous life, but I had spent plenty of time on obligatory socialization with my coworkers, which often involved watching football games together in bars. Enough to make me feel a little nostalgic, although the lack of refreshments detracted from the overall experience. I asked the proprietor during halftime, and he told me that what with the uncertainty surrounding the technology of the television, it wasn't worth the expense to obtain a liquor or food license.

In the grand tradition of football, the game ended with a 1-0 score. After saying farewell to our newfound friends, I dragged Neumann over to a food stall. I picked up another strudel, while he bought a pretzel roll for himself.

It occurred to me as I polished off my snack that in this world, there were opportunities for international sporting events that didn't exist back in my first life. If I made the effort, I could probably get the Unified States to agree to help put on a demonstration game of aerial lacrosse. We might even be able to perform in front of the crowd at the World Cup. Anything that helped solidify our international ties was worth doing in my book. And, as long as I was reaching out to the Unified States, I might as well do a favor for my lovesick underling.

"I've made a decision," I announced. "In the interest of international cooperation, I'm going to invite a few mages from the Unified States to observe the operation of our magic academy."

In theory, hiding our aerial mage training from the Unified States could give us an edge in a war. In practice, I intended to surrender immediately if we somehow wound up at war with the Americans. Besides, they struck me as too prideful to steal our training program outright. I also ought to be able to earn some brownie points in exchange for my openness, although I knew that ultimately sentiment didn't count for much in the world of great power politics.

"You mean..." Neumann began, before trailing off, eyeing me warily. It always seemed unfair to me how after you wake somebody up with an artillery spell one time, they act paranoid around you for the rest of their life.

"I can't tell them who to send," I said, "but I imagine they would want their observer to be a skilled mage, somebody familiar with our language and comfortable living here."

He responded by staring off into space, no doubt visualizing his reunion with his lost love.

"I assume that schtupping a fellow member of the school's staff won't offend your delicate sensibilities."

Neumann coughed, then gave me a wounded look. I might have been moved if I hadn't known the man for more than a decade.

"Also, just to be clear," I said, dropping the playful tone, "you are seducing her to abandon her country. Not the other way around."

"You don't have to make it sound like a mission objective," he grumbled.

"If it helps," I replied, "just think of it as added spice in the bedroom."

He had just ventured to take a bite from his pretzel when he processed what I had said. I had to give him credit. Even as it took a good few hacking coughs to clear the half-chewed chunk of bread from his throat, he didn't once reach for his computation orb. He was really sticking to his role. If he could bring that same can-do attitude to his future romantic pursuits, he'd be all right.

ooOoo

 _AN2: In this world, the term for "gap moe" will be some fifteen syllable Germanian abomination._


	26. Chapter 26

_AN: there are a few wild umlauts in this update._

ooOoo

The major port city of Hambrück was about an hour away from the capital, as the mage flies. The streets below were quiet as I glided through the predawn gloom. As I drew near the coast, I saw some fishermen bustling about their ships, preparing for the day's work. My destination, the largest shipyard in the country, was immediately obvious even before I overflew it.

I huffed slightly in frustration as I descended to land by road leading to the front gate. I could have spent another half hour in bed if I hadn't decided to depart early in case I got lost. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

I touched down and cut off the power to my computation orb. Doing so exposed me to the icy breeze that had been held at bay by my passive shield. I shuddered, drawing my overcoat tight. The weather this far north was no joke, even if it was just the end of October, not yet truly winter.

Of course, a veteran from the Norden campaign would laugh at the idea of being bothered by this little cold snap. And they'd have a point. I'd spent my difficult nights lately sipping hot cocoa and reading reports by a fire, not huddled in a shell hole trying to keep my hands warm enough to function. I frowned. I really needed to stop letting Weiss postpone my participation in the magical academy's training exercises.

I was almost ready to resort to the use of my computation orb as a hand warmer when a black Rolls Royce sedan rolled to a stop in front of me. The back door opened to reveal Mr. Lloyd, the ambassador from the Allied Kingdom. He was joined by a second man whom he introduced as a Mr. Flemons, his naval attache. Mr. Flemons was emitting the low level of mana usage associated with a recording spell. Good. I had been a little worried that they wouldn't take my offer seriously.

"Thanks for coming," I said.

"We could hardly refuse your invitation," Mr. Lloyd replied.

"I suppose not," I said. "Oh, before I forget, congratulations on dropping the gold standard. I'm glad your parliament finally saw sense."

"Yes, well," Mr. Lloyd said, "let's hope that it helps with the present difficulties."

"When you're drowning, letting go of an anchor chain can't hurt," I said. "Although it would be better if you opened up to international trade. You can survive on trading with your colonies, but wouldn't you rather thrive?"

"You should be writing speeches for the opposition," Mr. Lloyd replied.

"You flatter me," I said.

I turned and led the way to the front gate. The guard waved us in without comment. Waiting just inside was the ensign who would be acting as our tour guide.

Just a week earlier, I had been notified that our new ships were ready to put to sea. At first, I had taken it as very welcome news that we were ahead of schedule, as they weren't supposed to be complete until next March. It was a stark contrast with our other military projects. Our attempt at a 45-ton tank had set itself on fire the first time it was taken for a drive, while the prototype of our new fighter had crashed during its second flight. A certain amount of unexpected crashing and burning was expected on the cutting edge of military technology, of course, but I naturally preferred to receive good news.

My good mood had been dampened after an admiral explained to me the difference between putting a ship in the sea and a ship being ready for service. The ships were actually on schedule rather than ahead of schedule. The navy had simply allocated a healthy amount of time for testing of the new platforms before putting them on the official register. Still, I couldn't complain. At least things were going to plan and nothing was on fire.

Another new tidbit of information had come in from Elya, namely that the Allied Kingdom was unusually curious about our new ships. I was surprised to learn that. Our naval budget would be a rounding error in the funding going to the Royal Navy, and they certainly weren't going to learn anything from our shipbuilding techniques. On the other hand, I could understand that a country whose defense depended on the strength of their navy felt it needed to pay close attention to foreign navies, no matter how small.

It was cute, how proud Elya was of stymieing the Allied Kingdom's efforts. I appreciated that she had given us the choice about how much information we wanted to reveal. However, we didn't really benefit much from keeping them in the dark. While I wanted the Allied Kingdom to take us seriously, I didn't want them to feel any genuine concern over our navy. Since our new ships were in fact no threat to their navy, the easiest way to allay any fears they might have should be to let them have a good look at our ships.

The simplest way to accomplish that goal was to invite an observer from the Allied Kingdom to take a tour of our new ships before they were launched. I'd asked the navy to provide their friendliest, most blindly jingoistic sailor to act as our guide. I had to admit, however unhappy they must be with their budget, the navy was still following my orders. Even just walking through the shipyard, the ensign wasted no time before pronouncing Germanian shipbuilding the most sophisticated in the world, lauding every half-built ship we passed as a miracle of engineering.

He paused only briefly in his patter as we passed the privacy screens that had hidden the new ships from sight. After giving us a moment to take in their appearance, he launched into a speech predicting that the reborn Germanian navy would soon rule the waves.

I had to admit, the ships did look good. Perhaps I'd been infected by the values of my countrymen, or perhaps it was something I'd brought with me from my previous life, but seeing these massive multi-thousand ton masterpieces of industrial engineering struck a chord in my heart. I suddenly felt some sympathy for the Emperor and his foolhardy infatuation with big ships that had driven a wedge between the Empire and the Allied Kingdom back before I was reborn.

I shook my head. I had learned from history twice over the foolishness of pursuing naval power from my position. I steeled myself as we followed our guide to KMS Count Bützow, Germania's first aircraft carrier. No matter how impressive the ship might look in person, I couldn't let it sway me from rational decision making in our future naval planning.

The first stop was the flight deck. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. Sure, the Unified States had carriers that could put up swarms of aircraft that would dwarf what this ship carried. The Allied Kingdom had carriers that were not only bigger, but also armored well enough to shrug off hits that would sink the Count Bützow. In the Akitsushiman navy, this ship would be second rate. After all, they weren't about to share the plans for their best carriers. Even so, this was still a floating airfield over two hundred meters long, and it was ours.

Our guide's boast that the Count Bützow was a revolutionary new design that would sweep the seas clean of Germania's enemies helped me snap out of it. After eight years in the military and almost that much time in politics, my body had developed what was almost an allergic response to bullshit. Objectively speaking, this ship was an old design that could only dominate the waves as long as the first rate navies of the world politely stayed out of the way. I held back a disdainful snort and contented myself with a small smile. I'd asked for this ensign for a reason, after all.

My decision paid off as we were touring the upper hanger. Our guide was extolling the virtues of the system the ship used for storing aviation fuel, namely in tanks built into the ship's structure, when Mr. Flemons finally snapped.

"It's a lovely system as long as nothing rattles the walls, I suppose."

I didn't give any outward response, but I did make a mental note to raise the issue with the naval design bureau in the future. Any profits from this little subterfuge would rely on my memory. Our guide had no idea that his appointment served any larger purpose, in order to ensure that he gave the most authentic possible performance. Indeed, he was magnificently oblivious as he insisted that the Count Bützow's invincible air wing would ensure that enemies would never lay their eyes on the carrier itself.

Flemons kept himself under control as we proceeded to tour the ship from stem to stern, either out of a sense of courtesy or perhaps an intuitive sense of paranoia. I only harvested two more comments to share with our engineers during the remainder of our exploration, even as I myself was growing sick of hearing praise for Germanian engineering. The most remarkable exchange occurred as we disembarked from the carrier, when Flemons commented on its similarity to its Akitsushiman sister ship. Our guide hardly missed a beat before suggesting that the Akitsushimans must have stolen our early design documents.

I had to admit, I was impressed. I had expected a lie about convergent evolution in design. Even I would have choked on the claim that the Akitsushiman's had copied our plans when their ship had put to sea before ours had even been laid down. If he managed to survive his term of service, our guide had a bright future in front of him in politics.

The trip through the KMS Altenburg, our new destroyer, didn't take nearly as long. At the end of it all I thanked our guide for his service and sent him on his way. That left me alone with my two guests from the Allied Kingdom, gathered near the prow of the Altenburg. We were completely isolated from any eavesdroppers. An ideal situation for honest conversation.

"Well," I asked, spreading my arms to encompass the ships around us, "what do you think?"

"Both ships are match for the specifications that you sent us," Mr. Lloyd said.

"Of course," I replied.

"You've certainly been generous with the anti-aircraft armament," Mr. Flemons said, gesturing at the Altenburg's forward turret. Indeed, the ship's main guns were best described as anti-aircraft cannons that could also be aimed at surface targets in a pinch. Again, I could only count myself fortunate that the navy followed my orders, regardless of our disagreements.

"Naturally," I said. "Victory at sea begins in the air."

Both men looked skeptical at that. They were polite enough not to contradict me directly.

Of course, anti-aircraft guns were unlikely to prove truly decisive in a major battle. Still, it was nice to have as much protective firepower as possible surrounding our one and only aircraft carrier. Also, our destroyers' ability to defend themselves against enemy mages would free up our own mages for better uses. I would always rather have one big group of mages available to go on the attack rather than a bunch of small groups tied down on defense.

"You truly don't intend to build any battleships?" Mr. Lloyd asked. He was looking around the shipyard as though a thirty-thousand ton ship might suddenly materialize on one of the surrounding berths.

"Of course not," I said. "Honestly, it would be more efficient just to dump thousands of tons of steel into the sea. At least that wouldn't cost me any sailors."

"I've seldom heard such an enthusiastic embrace of the Jeune École," Mr. Lloyd said.

"The young school?" I asked. I recognized the words, but he seemed to be referring to something specific.

"Bunch of boffins in Francois fifty years ago thought the torpedo spelled the end of the big warship," Flemons said. "They're long gone, and the battleship's still around."

I felt a twinge of sympathy for the Frankish theorists of yesteryear. While a man who was one year ahead of his time would soon be known as a genius, a man stuck fifty years ahead of his time would be labeled a pie-in-the-sky dreamer until the day he died. If I'd never cracked open a history book in my previous life, I could have been stuck in the same boat. I certainly wouldn't have gotten as far as I had if I had been trying to reproduce the Internet instead of combined arms tactics.

"The age of great naval gun battles is drawing to a close," I said. "But you're right, it's not over yet."

The dominance of the battleship was the outgrowth of the dominance of naval gunnery. As long as naval battles were decided by cannons, a ship that could both dish out and absorb a great deal of cannon fire would naturally rule the waves. Things would only change if some other sort of weapon could out-range cannons and sink big ships. For example, aircraft and radar guided bombs and missiles. While the battleship was the ideal gun-carrying vessel, as the premier weapon system changed, the ship that best carried such weapons would become the premier naval vessel.

"For now, the battleship is still king of the waves. That means the Allied Kingdom has to field them," I continued. "We only need our navy to bottle up the Rus in Ulanograd and to give the Francois second thoughts about imposing a blockade."

Germania was fortunate not to need much out of its navy. That good fortune was paid for with interest by the country's need to defend itself against potential invasions from every direction. Still, in this area at least we had the luxury to build with an eye toward the future and not worry too much about the present.

It was a stark contrast to Albion's situation. If they were to go to war with the Republic of Francois and somehow lost control of the Albish Channel, it would be an utter disaster. For us, on the other hand, even if our ships couldn't deal with a Frankish blockade, our army could resolve the situation by occupying Parisee.

I clapped my hands together in satisfaction. "This cheap, adequate navy should be sufficient for our purposes."

Both men looked a little shocked by my frank admission. Mr. Lloyd was the first to recover. "That..."

Of course, I wouldn't be so dismissive of our fleet in public. If I couldn't speak my mind freely in private, though, what was the point of being Chancellor? In the long run, I expected they would appreciate my honesty.

"Now," I said, checking the time, "please forgive me for not seeing you out."

Our meeting was hardly top secret, but it was meant to be somewhat quiet. The shipyard had been growing more active as the day wore on. It was almost late enough in the morning for my alarm clock to have gone off back home. The last thing any of us wanted was a picture of the three of us walking out of the shipyard together showing up in tomorrow's papers. So, after saying our goodbyes, Flemons slung Mr. Lloyd's arm over his shoulders and a moment later the three of us were in the air. The other two headed out over the water, intending to circle around and then freshen up before attending the launch ceremony later as honored guests. I, meanwhile, headed into town for a nap.

Once I'd rested, I unfortunately had to put away my comfortable flying clothes and dress up in my trademark dress and jacket. I still felt an occasional twinge of reluctance at putting on a dress. I wasn't exactly spoiled for choice when it came to outfits meant for public occasions, though, and I was even more reluctant to embrace the aesthetic of a tin pot dictator and start wearing a military uniform everywhere.

Suitably attired, I left to meet up with my entourage. Erich von Lergen, Hans von Zettour, and Admiral Breyer had nearly a century of military service between them. Once I was added to the mix, it made for a very respectable representation of the government's interest in the new ships. I thought it might be overkill until I saw the crowds gathered around the shipyard as we approached.

The public enthusiasm for the new ships was all out of proportion for the relatively meager naval power that they represented. I suppose these were the first modern ships the country had put to sea in some time. Still, I wouldn't have bothered to show up myself if I had lived in the area and been blessed with a comfortable, uneventful job.

Fortunately, I was long since inured to the pressure of public speaking. I gave my perfunctory remarks declaring that Germania was sailing into a bright new day and received some perfunctory applause. The navy had managed to dig up the granddaughter of the Count Bützow who had pioneered the development of rigid airships in order to perform the symbolic christening of the new aircraft carrier. She smashed the ceremonial bottle of wine against the ship without anything untoward happening, as did the local official's daughter who had been pressed into service to christen the Altenburg.

Both ships trundled down into the water according to plan. I would have liked to applaud and head home, but unfortunately my duty was not yet over. The Count Bützow was carefully maneuvered around to the point that a gangplank could be attached to allow its distinguished guests to board. Namely, myself, my entourage, and our friends from the Allied Kingdom.

The flight deck provided a good deal of unused space that allowed our party to gather and make small talk while the Count Bützow made her way out to sea. I held my tongue and let the others carry the conversation. I'd never been much of a schmoozer. I could socialize adequately with my co-workers when the situation demanded it, but I'd always found it draining. I could play to a crowd, I could have a reasonable one-on-one discussion with anybody, but even as a professional politician, I still didn't like working the proverbial room. Fortunately, Zettour and Lergen were more than capable of picking up the slack.

As the ship made it out to the open sea and began to pick up speed, standing around on the flight deck became more challenging. The others began to make their way inside, heading for the bridge to continue monitoring the Count Bützow's shakedown cruise. I decided I could afford to shirk my duties for a while. Or rather, I decided to delegate in the interest of efficiency.

Instead of heading inside, I made my excuses and separated from the group to head towards the leading edge of the flight deck. I tapped into just a bit of magic to keep my balance. Finally reaching the end of the deck, I sat down. My legs dangled out over the edge, swaying with the motion of the ship. The privilege of being the boss: over a thousand people on board, and I could still enjoy a moment of solitude.

The ship picked up speed. The captain wouldn't test her limits until it was time for the official speed trials, but even on this first run he would push her a bit, just to see how she handled. As far as I could tell, the Count Bützow was holding up well. It really was an impressive feat of engineering for something so large to travel so fast.

Ah, sea power could be seductive. The Count Bützow was a ship of the Germanian navy. Ultimately it belonged to the nation and people of Germania. I could exercise some influence over where it went, but it was hardly my personal property. Even so, I kept catching myself slipping into the habit of thinking of it as mine.

I watched the waves as they marched toward us and felt the power of the ship beneath me as it plowed its way forward. I could feel the temptation to show off. To tell people about what a wonderful thing Germania had built and how it was all my idea. As if the fact that I had told the navy to build an aircraft carrier made me responsible for the thousands of people who poured years of their lives into making the Count Bützow a reality.

There was a darker side to sea power as well. Trying to intimidate somebody by using an army required expensive mobilization and tended to provoke all of your neighbors. Intimidating somebody with a navy was as simple as having a ship drop by for a visit. Just the sight of a capital ship was enough to remind any troublesome foreigners of the destructive force waiting to be unleashed at your whim.

It would be foolish to let my ego get puffed up by that kind of thinking. I hadn't built the Count Bützow, and any influence I had over it could disappear in the course of a single election. What's more, even the ability of the Count Bützow to influence international events was an illusion. The truth was, there could only be one king of the waves. Other navies stayed afloat at his sufferance. And that king was not, and never would be, my country.

The Count Bützow was a boondoggle that I had agreed to in order to placate my navy and forestall an outright mutiny. Even if it wasn't as egregiously wasteful as a battleship would have been, the money spent on it was still a waste. I sighed and patted the deck apologetically.

I did my best to put such thoughts out of my mind and simply enjoy the moment. My attempt to relax was complicated by the need to keep myself planted safely on the deck, but I'd long since learned to perform that level of magic without conscious thought.

I was drawn out of my woolgathering when I sensed somebody approaching from behind me. I turned around and saw Flemons carefully placing one foot in front of the other. From the feel of things, he had a flight spell cued up and just about ready to go, even though the Count Bützow was noticeably slowing down.

He stopped within earshot, a few paces back from the edge of the deck. "Thirty knots."

"Oh?" I asked. It sounded good, but I hadn't paid close attention to the projected technical specs.

"I'd wager both ships have a bit in reserve, too," he said. "Nice little commerce raiders you've got here."

I laughed. "Surface raiding died with the invention of the sea plane. With the spread of electronic range finding it will become downright futile."

"You're rather cavalier with military secrets," he said, surprisingly sour for a spy who was being handed information.

"Did you believe the antennae were decorative?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Really, his remark was a little unfair.

Even if I had wanted to keep everything secret, there were practical limits to what I could do. In particular, the primitive radar set hooked up to our new destroyer was not subtle at all. Whether or not I had invited the Allied Kingdom's representatives to this event, they'd know what was going on as soon as they saw our destroyer out in the wild. They could probably even calculate how it worked based on how the antenna looked.

By contrast, the secrets that I actually wanted to keep secret had been secured by way of their absence. The Count Bützow's hanger bay was empty because I didn't want the Albish getting a good look at our carrier aircraft. The tanks containing hydrogen peroxide for our new torpedoes were also absent, their place filled in by more ordinary gas tanks.

Of course, it would defeat the purpose of all that effort if I were to brag about it.

"Still-" Flemons said, before catching himself as the water ahead and to the side began to move in an unnatural fashion. "What's that?"

A form came rising up out of the depths in front of our eyes. The water sheeting off the sides finally settled down, revealing the sleek lines of our prototype submarine. Unlike other nation's submarines, this one was designed as a vessel that truly thrived underwater, rather than as a boat that could dive. Also unlike other nation's submarines, there was a small but significant chance that this submarine would explode of its own accord every time it put to sea.

Once enough testing had been done to prove that the hydrogen peroxide fueled engines worked and to prove that the safety problems were insurmountable, I had ordered our rocket submarine to be kept out of regular service. The experience working with it had helped the navy develop a set of procedures for safe handling of our hydrogen peroxide fueled torpedoes, which was more than enough return on investment. Pushing any further ran the risk of one of the many not-quite-catastrophic disasters the sub had suffered finally sinking the ship, in exchange for little gain. Accordingly, I had instructed that it was only to be taken out on special occasions.

"Ah, it's time," I said. I pressed down with both arms and hopped up to my feet. "You should have gotten the notice that we were building a submarine."

If there was one thing I paid close attention to, it was following every agreement with the Allied Kingdom to the letter. We hadn't sent them the detailed plans for the submarine as we did with the other two ships, but they should definitely have gotten the notice they were entitled to under our treaty.

"Yes," Flemons said. He still sounded puzzled.

"I thought it best to get all of our demonstrations over with at once," I said. I walked past him back down the length of the flight deck.

Flemons trailed behind me. "What's so special about that submarine?"

I glanced back at him and smiled. "I've been told not to be cavalier with military secrets, I'm afraid."

The two of us soon arrived at the bridge. It provided an excellent view of the submarine down below. A hatch was propped open and a man had stuck his upper body up through it. He was vigorously waving a signal flag. I could only hope that he wasn't communicating the tale of an ongoing disaster.

It seemed our luck was good. The man disappeared into the submarine, closing the hatch behind him, before it began a controlled dive. On our ship, the captain instructed his crew to proceed as planned.

The plan was for the Count Bützow to increase its speed to twenty knots and to hold it there for half an hour. If I said it was interesting, that would be a lie. After all, we couldn't see the submarine, so we were just watching an empty stretch of sea. If I said it was relaxing, that would also be a lie. After all, at any moment a geyser of water could announce the catastrophic demise of our precious experimental submarine.

What was the truth, though, was that it was a monumental relief when the allotted half hour passed and the submarine rose to the surface, more or less in the same spot relative to the Count Bützow that it had occupied before. Once more, the hatch opened, and the same man appeared, waving another flag. I could again only hope that he wasn't warning us of the imminent demise of the sub.

Of course, I kept all of that relief and nervous tension from showing in my expression or my tone of voice as I turned to address Mr. Lloyd.

"Not bad, right?" I asked, a cheerful smile on my face. "They're still working out the kinks with waste disposal during extended dives, but I'm told that will be fixed before we move into production."

In actual point of fact, the prototype submarine couldn't stay underwater long enough for waste buildup to become a problem. I'd honestly hesitate before even ordering them to load up with enough rocket fuel to make such a thing theoretically possible. Of course, Mr. Lloyd didn't know that. Not for sure.

The best time to get somebody to accept a whopper is when they've just had their worldview shaken. Before now, they would have been under the impression that submarines topped out at around seven or eight knots underwater. As we had just proven to be capable of more than doubling that speed, it should at least sound plausible that we had also greatly extended the time that a submarine could spend underwater.

"That's a prototype?" he asked, staring out at the submarine idling along beside us.

"Of course," I said. "It's been so long since we've built a submarine. We couldn't jump into large scale production."

"Though," Admiral Breyer said, "we can settle on our fleet composition soon that all three of the new designs are in the water."

I glanced over at Zettour, but my Foreign Minister had already spotted his cue.

"I believe the relevant treaty provides us with great flexibility when it comes to destroyers and aircraft carriers," Zettour said, "but given the projected tonnage we're allowed only twenty submarines, more or less."

General Lergen did his part by looming in the background. If I had to pick one man who embodied our military's ability to wreak havoc when given a technical advantage, he would be my choice.

"Twenty," Mr. Lloyd echoed, still staring down at the submarine outside.

"Of course," I said, drawing his attention back to me, "we could negotiate a plan more to your liking. I am, after all, a reasonable person."

If I couldn't open up trading markets by means of reasonable persuasion, then I wouldn't scruple to use deception. Ideally, Germania could score a generous payout in exchange for refraining to do something we weren't going to do anyway. I couldn't live out my own dream, stuck as I was in a position of responsibility, but I could at least live vicariously through my nation's accomplishments.

ooOoo

 _AN2: For those of you worried about broader international political trends during the mini-timeskip, rest assured they will be explored next chapter._


	27. Chapter 27

_AN: I have been enjoying the ongoing evolution of Lergen into the YS answer to One Punch Man's King._

ooOoo

Unfortunately, I couldn't pressure the Allied Kingdom's ambassador into signing a deal on the spot. Taking advantage of a flustered negotiating partner is a con artist's treasured dream for good reason. In matters of international diplomacy, though, sealing agreements took time. The breather given by Mr. Lloyd's request for instruction from his political higher-ups allowed for cooler heads to prevail. Much cooler.

I was surprised when the Allied Kingdom seemed downright uninterested in making a deal. At first I thought they suspected the veracity of our demonstration. That would have been tough to deal with, since the only thing I could think to do to provide completely ironclad proof would be to allow their observer aboard the sub. That was no good. If they got a first hand look at the submarine while it was in operation, it wouldn't take long to figure out that it was more dangerous to its crew members than anybody else. Even worse, a catastrophic failure in the test would no longer be just a tragic loss of face for Germania but also a major diplomatic incident.

It was Elya who informed me that our problems were actually arising from the opposite direction. The Allied Kingdom had swallowed our bait hook, line, and sinker. The Admiralty was raising hell trying to secure more funding for anti-submarine warfare and anti-submarine technology development. Unfortunately, there was an influential faction among them who were vehemently opposed to paying any so-called "danegeld," either out of principled objections or out of the desire to preserve an issue that would inflate their budget.

In the end, the bargain we struck was more modest than I might have hoped, but more generous than I had feared. The Allied Kingdom agreed to exert pressure on the dominion of Kanata and to waive their own rights under the imperial preference system, opening up another foreign market to Germanian merchants. I would have preferred access to Albion itself, but an open door in Kanata was a decent consolation prize.

While they were an ocean away, our foothold in the Unified States made the distance between us and Kanata seem closer than it otherwise might have been. Besides, we were receiving this windfall in exchange for something I would have done anyways. Our part of the agreement required us to limit our navy was to three submarines on active duty and no more than two prototypes to act as testing platforms.

The Admiralty also got the supplemental funding it wanted for anti-submarine technology, apparently on the theory that I might sneak around the agreement. The idea that our rocket submarines might do anything sneakily just showed that the Allied Kingdom didn't have the first clue of the technology we were using. If they wanted to spend their money and efforts chasing ghost submarines across the ocean then I wished them all the best. For my part, I intended to ask the navy some searching questions during the next budget review to determine whether we needed to build any submarines at all.

The Allied Kingdom could be considered to have followed half of my recommendations as to avoiding the worldwide depression. They had left the gold standard, but refused to open up their market to international trade, even under pressure. The Francois, on the other hand, were wholeheartedly rejecting economic good sense.

Pierre-Michel de Lugo had made a triumphant return to politics earlier in the year, securing the Francois Presidency on his platform of "a strong franc and a strong Francois." He had sworn to cling to the gold standard no matter the cost, while also proclaiming that he would ramp up military spending. So far, he was following through on both promises.

I would have liked to fortify our border in order to head off any Frankish adventurism, but unfortunately that was prohibited by treaty. All that I could do was authorize a steady increase in the size of our own army to match the Francois. Much as I would have liked to avoid the arms race altogether, as the larger country with a more stable economy, we should be able to persevere for long enough to protect ourselves.

More alarming news had come from our southern neighbors, and was the cause for today's meeting. I glanced around my small conference room. Only my closest confidantes were gathered for this one. Visha, of course. Foreign Minister Zettour. General Lergen. And Elya, the bearer of bad news. It was up to us to come up with a plan before the coming storm became public knowledge.

Once everyone was seated around the table, I nodded at Elya to begin her briefing.

"This morning, Benedetto Muzzioli met with the king of Ildoa to request that he dissolve their government and install Muzzioli as Prime Minister. The King refused," Elya said. "This afternoon, Muzzioli had another meeting with the king. In the second meeting, he was accompanied by three of Ildoa's most senior generals."

Benedetto Muzzioli was a real piece of work. He had first come to prominence shortly after the end of the Great War, arguing that Ildoa should have been given a bigger slice of the Empire's land in the Treaty of Triano. His unapologetic expansionism and authoritarian style were enough to secure him around ten percent of the vote. For a long time, he had held a spot in Ildoa's parliament with no real power. Then the recession began.

Muzzioli took advantage of the economic turmoil, blaming Ildoa's problems on the politicians who had allegedly betrayed them at Triano. He also made explicit appeals for the need for somebody to take a firm hand to straighten out Ildoa's domestic situation and pursue a blatantly expansionist foreign policy. That had been enough to propel him to around thirty percent of the vote.

While alarming, he still wasn't able to take any official power. Then he started building ties with the military establishment. Whether they were alarmed by the social unrest caused by the recession or simply agreed with his policies, I couldn't say. Either way, now that he had a line on military power, he was looking to take control of Ildoa and then start carving pieces out of Germania. The whole situation was bad news for the peace and prosperity of Europe.

"He's taking over, then?" Zettour asked.

"He'll try. Luigi Falasca won't just lie down and accept the strong-arming of the king," Elya said. "Around a third of the army should side with the elected government."

By my math, that meant that Muzzioli's forces would enjoy a two to one advantage over the legitimate Prime Minister. That's not to mention the fact that Muzzioli had been building up his own private army of black-shirted fanatics for years. While the bulk of the population probably preferred the democratic government, it took time to translate that sort of support into military might.

"Civil war," Lergen said.

"Exactly," I said. "With chaos descending on our southern neighbor, we can't sit idle."

Standing by and watching a dictator with designs on our land take over a neighboring country would be foolish. Ideally, the democratic government of Ildoa would triumph on its own. I'd long since learned, though, that leaving important matters up to chance was foolish. In order to thwart Being X's machinations, I would have to make my own luck through rational planning.

"Invading and pacifying Ildoa would be a major undertaking," General Lergen said. "It would require over half of the forces we usually earmark to protect against Francois aggression."

I knew General Lergen had been frustrated when I neglected his plans for an invasion of the Republic of Francois. It was obviously still bothering him, considering how quickly he had leaped to suggest we invade Ildoa with overwhelming force. Even absent any diplomatic considerations, though, that seemed like an over-commitment of our military.

"That many?" Zettour asked. "The industrial heartland is just over the border. Surely we could save on troops if we minimize our commitment further south."

I felt that I should probably shut down this tangent, since it wasn't really relevant to my plans. I was curious, though, what General Lergen had to say, so I remained silent.

"In order to avoid getting bogged down in trench warfare, our doctrine calls for an overwhelming force of infantry, armor, and air strikes," Lergen replied. "Once such a force is attained, the extent of the conquest makes little difference. If we skimp on the invasion force, it could be the Great War all over again."

As expected from General Lergen, his military ideas were years ahead of their time. While it was a hassle to have to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't launch any freelance invasions, I thought it was worth the effort to have such a competent subordinate on my team.

"If we're intervening in a civil war," Visha asked, "wouldn't we be working with friendly troops?"

While Visha had brought up a valid point, we needed to focus on the matter at hand. This sort of discussion was probably the result of my inner circle being made up of competent military veterans. In the future, I might need to broaden my staff. For now, I decided to step in directly and bring us back to the main topic. I brought an open hand down on the table, briefly silencing the room.

"This isn't the time for second guessing. General Lergen has worked closely with the General Staff to develop this plan. If he says he needs half the army, then I will give him half the army," I said. "I'm sure the plan has a satisfactory proviso for defense against the Francois."

I gave General Lergen an apologetic smile. I felt bad for getting his hopes up.

"However, I don't believe a military response is appropriate. At least not yet," I continued. I turned to face Zettour. "What's the likely diplomatic reaction to an Ildoan Civil War?"

"The Francois would support Muzzioli," Zettour said, "if only to spite us."

His thoughts matched mine exactly. If the Francois could have their way we'd be surrounded by hostile neighbors, just as we'd been before the Great War.

"The Albish public wouldn't care much one way or the other," Elya said. "It's hard to say what their government will do."

"If I know anything about the Allied Kingdom," Zettour said, "it's that they're happy to stick their nose in any time something upsets the status quo."

That also matched my own observations. Somehow the Allied Kingdom believed it was fair to consider their business to be personal and private while also weighing in on everybody else's business. Chaos in a major maritime power like Ildoa wasn't something they would let slide. Even more so, I doubted they would be happy with the rise of a warmonger to command a nation in the heart of Europe.

"So General Lergen's plan of presenting them with a fait accompli just might work," I said. I should have known that he wouldn't have suggested an invasion without thinking it through. "On balance, though, I don't think it's worth the risk."

It was probably another hazard of my all-veteran group of advisers that they unanimously saw our neighbor's weakness as an opportunity for invasion. In fairness, though, that had also been the attitude of the Empire's diplomatic corps going back to before Preussia could even have been considered an empire. Still, a unilateral invasion, even if just to restore a democratically elected government, was far too provocative.

"We've been assertive in protecting ourselves, as is only right," I continued. "A matter like this is peripheral to our vital interests, though. Instead of grabbing at every scrap of land we can take, we should instead show that we can be reasonable partners in the peaceful resolution of disputes."

Working with other countries would burnish our reputation and help ease some of the tension that still lingered from the Empire's expansion. It would also be nice to have foreign troops around to soak up some of the casualties from intervening in Ildoa. If we assembled a sufficiently strong coalition, Muzzioli might even give himself up without a fight in exchange for lenient treatment. Even if guys like him always seemed to fight it out to the bitter end, at some point he should recognize that he's facing a lost cause.

I turned back to address Zettour. "Reach out to your counterparts in the major powers. We won't cross the border into Ildoa until we've organized an international peacekeeping force for the restoration of democracy."

He blinked, then nodded. As long as I kept delivering a clear message of pacifism from the top down, even an old war hound like Zettour would work towards the cause of world peace.

ooOoo

Unfortunately, putting together an international coalition proved to be more challenging than I had expected. After foreign nations had proven so eager to invade the Empire, I thought they would leap at the chance to join in an easier and more justifiable intervention. Expecting altruism to drive great power politics was far too optimistic, but it wasn't as if the Great War had been driven by any kind of rational calculation of self-interest.

I probably should have known that I couldn't expect that kind of irrationality to work in my favor.

The Francois replied with a widely circulated note expressing support for Muzzioli and their hope that he would soon settle "the current rebellion" and pacify Ildoa. Irritating, but not too surprising. What caught me wrong-footed was the attitude of the first diplomat to meet with me in person.

"You want the Unified States to go to war and ship American boys across the ocean," Mr. Johnson asked, "to die for the cause of... Ildoan political stability?"

Even if I didn't like his tone, I did appreciate that the American ambassador had agreed to meet with me so promptly. The battle lines were still being drawn in Ildoa. The major bloodshed hadn't yet begun.

"I want your help to stop Muzzioli," I said. "Making sense of Ildoan politics is beyond all of us."

It wasn't the most inspiring rallying cry, but given his personality I was going to wind up fighting Muzzioli now or fighting him later. I'd much rather come down on him before he even had the full resources of one country behind him, let alone the allies he could scrounge up for his anti-Germanian crusade.

"The man's an ass," Mr. Johnson allowed, "but neither the constitution nor the people of the Unified States have taken on the mission of ridding the world of jackass politicians."

That was pretty much that. Mr. Johnson, and through him the Unified States of America, washed his hands of the Ildoan civil war, leaving it for the countries of Europe to muddle through.

I was surprised, then irritated with myself for being surprised. While the insight derived from my previous life had often served me well, thoughtless reliance on those memories wouldn't do me any good. The future Unified States might take on the self-appointed role of world policeman, but I should have remembered that the present Unified States didn't much care about things that happened an ocean away.

The present day world's busybody would be represented by Mr. Lloyd in my afternoon meeting. He was, sadly, not delivering good news either.

"I'm afraid we cannot endorse an intervention into Ildoan internal affairs at this time," he said, just after exchanging greetings.

"Internal affairs?" I asked. "It's war. Or it will be soon."

What was shaping up in Ildoa wasn't just an election going the wrong way. It was the seizure of power by a dictator. The coming civil war looked to be ugly enough, but it would hardly be the end of the fighting if Muzzioli won.

"Yes, well," Mr. Lloyd said, "we still think it best that such unpleasantness should remain a strictly Ildoan matter."

That annoying note from the Francois had complicated everything. Instead of simply assembling a force to smack down Muzzioli, anybody planning to intervene in Ildoa had to worry that the Francois might act. I didn't think that they would–their military was in no shape to carry out an invasion–but not everybody shared my view.

After another few days of banging my head against the wall of diplomatic indifference, I took a break from my efforts to drop by General Lergen's office. He greeted me politely, not showing any resentment over having his plans thwarted by my pacifism. It really was nice, having such a competent professional overseeing the military.

"I came here to apologize," I said.

It was important to remain open-minded and acknowledge mistakes that you've made. I could be as stubborn as anybody when I was convinced that I was in the right, but I tried not to let that turn into outright pig-headedness when I was wrong.

"Whatever for?" he asked. It didn't sound like he was just trying to twist the knife. Rather, it seemed he truly didn't feel I had done anything meriting an apology. Well, he'd always been a little soft on me, even back when we were both in the army.

"I dismissed your idea for an invasion out of hand," I said. "Now, it's clear that nobody else in Europe cares enough about Ildoa to mobilize their armies. We could be marching through Roma right now, restoring the democratically elected government, if I'd let you have your way."

By this point, the battle lines in Ildoa had been drawn. Muzzioli's faction controlled the south of the country as well as the capital, while Falasca held the northern, industrialized, area. In the long run control of the north would provide a great advantage, but with the disparity in troops the war might not last long enough for that to matter.

I still preferred peaceful solutions. Now, though, I'd been reminded that my peace-loving nature could be a flaw that others could take advantage of in some circumstances.

He coughed. "There's no need to dwell on what happened in the past. Let's just focus on what we can do in the future."

As expected of a consummate professional. Even though I had thought he would probably let me off the hook, I still felt relieved that he truly didn't seem to bear any grudge against me.

"Well said," I said. "Speaking of future plans, what's the status of the special light infantry battalion?"

Weiss had managed to find quite a few military-aged C-class mages. Training them on the basic magic that was within their capabilities hadn't taken long. Many of them had chosen to go on to join the air force, pursuing the dream of flight that had been denied when they failed to make the cutoff for aerial mages. We'd been left with about a hundred men who were interested in infantry combat. In order to get the most out of them, they had been made the nucleus of a small battalion of highly trained light infantry, capable of operating independently in all terrain, under all circumstances.

"They are on a training rotation in the Alps," Lergen replied. "They could be ready for deployment within twenty-four hours."

"How fortuitous," I said, smiling. "I want you to canvass the men and see how many of them are interested in volunteering to fight for Ildoan democracy."

I wouldn't order soldiers to cross the border into Ildoa in the face of international hostility. But I could hardly be blamed if small groups of skilled soldiers decided to jump in and help out. Well, I could be blamed. But with a small enough force, I could seek refuge in the realm of plausible deniability.

"Volunteers?" he asked.

Of course, it was a bit much to expect anybody to walk over the border and fight a war on their own, no matter how well trained.

"We'll provide logistical support, naturally. As a fellow democracy, it's the least we can do," I said. "More to the point, I'm worried that Falasca needs a shot in the arm to keep his position from collapsing. All my diplomatic efforts would be pointless if Muzzioli takes over while we're still talking."

Lergen nodded and I left with a spring in my step. At least that was one disaster averted. I figured at least half of the battalion would volunteer, considering how war crazy soldiers could be. Falasca might not be excited about bolstering his forces with foreign troops, but at this point he should be willing to take any help he could get. Under competent direction making good use of the defensive terrain, the conquest of northern Ildoa would be neither quick nor easy.

ooOoo

It was clear that talking through letters and diplomats wasn't going to get me anywhere. I instead bent my efforts over the next few weeks towards arranging a meeting between heads of state. If I could meet with my peers and cut through the layers of bureaucracy between us, at least there was a chance I could convince them of the need for action.

It took some doing, but I managed to negotiate a three party conference to be held in Amstreldam, the capital of Lothiern, in the last week of November. Attending would be Nigel Cambry, the Prime Minister of the Allied Kingdom, as well as Pierre-Michel de Lugo. Every other relevant nation had simply washed their hands of Ildoa entirely. To be honest, I was starting to think that the best I could hope for was to get Albion's blessing for my own intervention in Ildoa, rather than any kind of real international cooperation.

Still, even that much would be fine. With friendly troops ushering us past the formidable natural barrier of the Alps, our army wouldn't have too much difficulty crushing the would-be dictator's forces. I wouldn't be thrilled about the loss of life, but the cost in human resources would be much lighter than if we had to fight our way down the entire length of the country.

I boarded the train to Amstreldam filled with such optimistic thoughts. The diplomatic team accompanying me on the journey briefed me on the two men I was about to meet. I knew de Lugo, of course, both from the war and from keeping a wary eye on the Francois Republic. Chambry was new to me, though. He had only recently risen to the office of Prime Minister at the ripe old age of 68, taking the position after the previous Prime Minister had resigned. As he hadn't taken a leading role in the election campaign, it was hard to say exactly what his foreign policy would be. He had spent the last few years pushing for increased military spending, though, so I didn't expect him to be a shrinking violet.

Soon enough I would be meeting the man in person. We arrived in Amstreldam with all due ceremony before proceeding to the luxurious hotel where the conference was to take place.

The three of us left the various aides and functionaries in the front halls, making our way to the sequestered set of rooms where we could hold a private conversation. Despite the chill of impending winter in the air, the day was nice enough that we proceeded by mutual agreement to the back gardens.

Eventually, the pleasant small talk began to wind down. I decided to broach the matter at hand.

"Muzzioli is a menace," I said. "He must be stopped."

"He's the rightfully appointed prime minister of Ildoa," de Lugo replied.

Between his imposing greatcoat and bristling mustache, the man looked fresh off a military campaign. Or a recruiting poster. I could see why he remained a popular figure in his home country, even as the left wing fretted publicly about his authoritarian tendencies.

"That was the result of blatant coercion," I replied.

"Was it?" he asked. "How can you be so sure?"

I was pretty sure that de Lugo was simply looking to create some ambiguity in order to provide some moral justification for his obstructive behavior. Or to needle me personally. The situation in Ildoa was obvious, and he was savvy enough to know what was going on.

"He's using the military to oppress his own people," I said.

De Lugo shrugged. "A natural fate for rebels."

I thought it was a bit much to refer to the elected government as though they were rebellious criminals. Before I could say anything, though, Chambry jumped in.

"Are you sure it's appropriate to stand in judgment of your neighbor?" he asked.

Of course, the basis of modern diplomacy is that states shouldn't meddle in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Not that they don't, but that they shouldn't. Still, though, there had to be limits.

"I think it is when they've descended into civil war!" I said.

From there the conversation simply went in circles. President de Lugo was adamant in his claim that Muzzioli was the rightful leader of Ildoa, while Chambry wouldn't budge on his policy of non-interference. For my part, I couldn't believe that they were so complacent about open war taking place in Europe, war that was the prelude to the rise of an expansionist dictator.

We took a break for food. It was enough time for tempers to cool, but it didn't seem that any of us were open to persuasion. When talks resumed, I decided to state my intentions directly.

"Germania alone could bring the civil war to a quick end and restore democracy in Ildoa," I said.

The other nations didn't need to contribute. If they would simply agree to stay out of my way, I could solve the problem for all of us.

"By the same token, the Republic of Francois could easily bring the Ildoan rebels to heel," de Lugo said.

A contrarian to the end. I would have said that he was sticking to his absurd position in order to secure some sort of valuable concession, but all of my attempts earlier to sound him out on such things had come up empty.

"The last thing any of us want to see is for this to turn into a second Great War," Chambry said. "The Ildoans will have to sort things out for themselves."

It still irritated me that he could make such a proposal and pretend it wasn't simply an acquiescence to Muzzioli's ascension.

"Once Muzzioli secures his rule," I said. "he'll start seeking out foreign conquests."

"We'll deal with that problem when it comes," Chambry said. "Until then, the Allied Kingdom will regard any violation of Ildoan sovereignty as an act of war."

That settled things. It was simply unthinkable to risk war with the Allied Kingdom, no matter how obnoxious it would be to face down a hostile Ildoa in the future. I tried to push back, but Chambry had laid down his marker and wouldn't be moved. In the end, there was nothing I could do but back down.

As Chambry left to announce the results of our meeting, I sank down onto a nearby bench with a sigh. The bench overlooked a stand of trees that had a certain stark beauty with their leaves shed for the year, but the only thing I could see in front of me was years of trouble on my southern border.

I was drawn out of my thoughts as de Lugo stepped to within conversational distance. "Chancellor."

"What?" I asked, snappish. The last thing I needed was to watch his victory dance.

"Are you truly so upset?" he asked. "Ildoan armies could never force their way past your southern border."

I'd lost my fair share of competitions in my life. While losing itself was irritating, the worst part of the experience was when the victor would take the time afterward to try to make me feel better about myself.

"Legadonia could never hope to take on the Empire," I said. "An idiot doesn't need to have a good plan in order to plunge the world into war."

The whole reason I had stuck around as Chancellor was so that I could steer my country away from war. This had been my first big chance to nip an obvious danger in the bud, and I had failed. It was enough to make me think about tendering my resignation. Assuming I didn't get thrown out on my ear after I came back to Berun with egg on my face.

"Perhaps Muzzioli will moderate his positions once he feels the responsibility of leadership," he said. "It has happened before."

I rolled my eyes at that. If he started going on about some ancient bit of Francois history purporting to show that Muzzioli might not be so bad, I was just going to walk away. Perhaps sensing my frustration, he cleared his throat.

"In any event, there is another issue to discuss," he said. "With the prospect of an extended civil war, Ildoa will not be able to host the World Cup."

I wasn't sure why he was bothering to tell me this. "Is the federation hosting another conference to solicit bids?"

"They've elected to award the right to host the tournament to Germania," he said. "It seems the other applicants retracted their bids before the final award was made, while Germania's was simply set aside. The announcement should be in the newspapers today or tomorrow."

I stared at him for a moment. The international football federation was dominated by the Francois. I couldn't imagine why they'd go out of their way to do me a favor. It didn't take long for the penny to drop.

"The tournament is barely more than half a year away!"

"If hosting the tournament would be inconvenient, simply let the federation know," he said. "I'm sure they could make alternative arrangements."

I narrowed my eyes. A diplomatic victory wasn't enough for this bastard. He wanted me to publicly humiliate my country by admitting we were too poor to host an international football tournament. Say one thing about the Francois, say they know how to twist the knife.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," I said. "I'm sure we can scrape something together."

I'd figure out some way to deal with Ildoa in the future. In the mean time, I was going to put on the best damn football tournament the world had ever seen, and I was going to rub it in this smug bastard's face at every opportunity.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Don't tell Elya I said this, but Tanya can't win 'em all._


	28. Chapter 28

_AN1: Sorry about the delay. I installed HOI4 for the first time, did some achievement runs, which reawakened my desire to do some EU4 achievement runs, which led to a bit of a hiatus. Shouldn't happen again._

ooOoo

I had always planned to back down in the event that the Allied Kingdom delivered a serious ultimatum. Following through on my intention was more grating than I had expected. It wasn't simply over and done with once I'd knuckled under. I'd have to return home and instruct my subordinates that I had changed my mind and was giving up on intervening in Ildoa. Then I'd have to explain myself to the people.

It's difficult for any politician to explain a sudden change of course. For me, who had attracted a support base of people who were bellicose to the point of insanity by presenting myself as somebody bellicose to the point of insanity, it would be that much harder. Well, at least I would make sure that I went down in history books as a voice for calm and for international cooperation. By trying my best, I might even be able to steer events in a peaceful direction.

Once I'd decided on a course of action, there was no point putting it off. I called for a special session of the Diet as soon as I returned to Berun. A day later, I found myself behind a podium, addressing the nation's legislators. Of course, the speech would also be carried out to the rest of the country over the radio, and would no doubt be reproduced in next morning's newspapers as well. I knew selling the public on my decision would be tough. The worst part was that I was starting to worry that I no longer had my finger on the pulse of popular opinion.

I had been elected on a rather bellicose platform, originally, but I'd always kept my public ire focused on the Treaty of the Triano. Once the more onerous provisions of the treaty had been lifted, I'd assumed that the voting public would refocus on the economy and turn me out in favor of somebody whose tax policy they liked better. At the very least, I'd expected there was some latent feeling of horror over the Great War that would create a groundswell of pacifism within the electorate.

Instead, all of my research had shown me nothing but enthusiastic support for a rematch. To the general public, the problem with the Great War wasn't the senseless waste of human life and productive capital. The problem was that we'd lost.

And that was the general public! I could only imagine how bad it was within the ranks of our party in the Diet. I hadn't paid close attention to the list of candidates Visha had put forward since I had planned on losing the election. The names that I recognized had all been early supporters, die hard warmongers. I couldn't imagine that the rest of them were much different.

All in all, it was easy to see this evening ending with a palace coup leading to a new government that would tear up the agreement of neutrality, invade Ildoa, and dare the Allied Kingdom to do something about it. Well, I'd do my best to keep that from happening.

Worst come to worst, I always had my Type 97 on me these days.

While I'd been musing over the situation, the crowd had gradually begun to quiet down. I didn't rush to begin my speech, instead taking some time to look around.

With our overwhelming majority in the Diet, the Germanian Workers' Party had the ability to do more or less as we pleased with the nation's government. I'd been wary of using that much power haphazardly. Since the election, I'd largely contented myself with modest initiatives. A commission to study farming techniques in America and issue technical recommendations. Expanding and regularizing the deposit insurance law. Formalizing the previously ad hoc infrastructure projects to guarantee physically difficult, poorly paid jobs of last resort to the nation's unemployed.

None of those matters had required me to do anything other than send over a memo. This was the first time that I'd addressed the Diet since the election. It also might be my last, depending on how my party judged my actions. Well, it was time to test the waters.

"I've said before that Benedetto Muzzioli is a dangerous megalomaniac. I stand by those words," I began. "He did not hesitate to turn his country's military against his own people. We can hardly expect him to scruple at any kind of foreign aggression."

I went on in that vein for some time, highlighting the inflammatory statements he had made in the past as well as the bad behavior that was already coming to light from the nascent civil war on our borders. As far as I could tell, the speech seemed to be going over well. Of course, insulting foreigners was practically a plank on the Germanian Workers' Party platform.

"However," I said, then paused. This was the big moment. The crowd, sensing that I was finally coming to the heart of the matter, fell silent.

"However," I repeated, "we must consider the principle of national self-determination. Respecting national sovereignty means we must not interfere with the internal affairs of other countries."

I swept my gaze over the audience. The switch to technical terminology seemed to have left them somewhat cold, but they were at least willing to hear me out. Time to cash in that benefit of the doubt.

"We ourselves have benefited greatly from this principle," I continued. "We would not have accomplished nearly so much over the last few years if other countries felt free to meddle in our affairs."

This was my most daring bit of rhetoric. Pointing out that all of our advances over the last few years—really, just about everything that I'd accomplished as Chancellor—had rested on the forbearance of other nations was a calculated risk. On the one hand, it was undoubtedly true. If the Allied Kingdom had decided to send in troops to prevent my election, there's nothing the country could have done about it. On the other hand, it was an insult to the national self-image and a departure from the party's usual propaganda that claimed we had risen from the ashes thanks to our own strength and determination. I hoped that the oblique reminder of our nation's weakness would help cool off some of the hotheads in the crowd.

I paused for a moment. In my notes, I'd indicated that at this point I should wait for the boos to die down before continuing. Instead, I received scattered applause.

That was odd. Perhaps the crowd wasn't really paying attention, and was simply applauding out of courtesy.

"In our future endeavors, as well," I said, "we will be placing ever more reliance on the principle that other countries will not violate national sovereignty."

Though Germania had rebounded from its weakest point, and embarrassed the Francois in the process, we'd still be crushed like bugs if the Great War coalition once more joined hands to wage war upon us. What's more, other nations' collective hackles were up after we had reacquired Osterry. Our country would be re-partitioned in a heartbeat if not for the respect others held for our national sovereignty.

The applause was back, and more forceful this time. I ignored it and pressed on.

"I have committed Germania to neutrality in the Ildoan civil war," I said, "with the full expectation that the other nations of the world will reaffirm their commitment to non-interference with internal affairs in general."

The applause had now swelled into a standing ovation. I stood behind the podium, doing my best not to let my confusion show.

Had our party been filled out with reasonable people when I wasn't looking? Had Germanians spontaneously lost their taste for war? I really needed to go back and double check just what kind of campaign promises Visha had been making. It would be tricky to do so without revealing that I hadn't been paying attention at the time, but I could figure something out.

In the mean time, I had a speech to finish. I glanced at my notes. The next major portion of the speech was an extended apology that culminated in an offer to tender my resignation. It seemed I could skip that. In which case, I could leave the whole unpleasant topic of the Ildoan civil war behind and proceed to more pleasant matters.

"Due to the ongoing war, Ildoa will not be able to host the World Cup," I said. "I'm happy to confirm the newspaper reports that Germania has accepted the honor of hosting the event in their place. I'd like to request that the Diet requisition funding for a committee to manage our obligations as hosts."

Naturally, the crowd was more excited by the honor conferred on the country by hosting the World Cup than they were worried about the prospect that we might screw it up. My brief sketch of my plan to get ready in time was met with another enthusiastic round of applause.

It was possible that Visha had just stuffed the Diet with yes-men, while all the capable politicians with their own opinions were working away on the outside to bring me down. In that case, the first indicator of popular discontent would appear when the unhappiness turned into a popular wave that swept me out of office. I'd be a little irritated if such a wave were to occur just after I'd stopped trying to generate it, but there wasn't much that I could do about it. I'd just have to use the time that I had left in office to establish a framework of peaceful relationships with the rest of Europe, and also to make sure that the Francois couldn't trick us into humiliating ourselves with any of their passive-aggressive ploys.

With the speech over, it was time to get down to the nuts and bolts of legislative work. Preparing for the World Cup would require a good healthy chunk of cash. Surprisingly, I was able to secure the approval of the Diet without too much trouble. Perhaps they were simply getting used to spending money we didn't have. Well, that was a little harsh. While our budget last year had been deep in the red thanks to extravagant spending, the growth of the economy had put us on the way to a balanced budget in the near future. The expense of the World Cup was just returning us to the old status quo.

At least I had managed to cut the required number of stadiums in half. One advantage of taking on the event at the last minute was that I pretty much had the football federation over a barrel when it came to negotiating the tournament format. This was only the second World Cup. Having it go off smoothly would go a long way to cementing the tournament as an institution. More importantly, to the politicians pulling the strings, they'd lose their chance to embarrass Germania if they gave us an excuse to pull out of hosting duties that didn't rest on our own lack of capability.

As a result, I had received only token resistance to my proposal that a group stage be played before the elimination rounds began. Four groups of four, with the top two from each group advancing. Compared to the Ildoan plan to go straight to knockout rounds, we only needed to build a new stadium for each group, instead of needing eight for the first round.

The existence of the group stage also meant that about twice as many games would be played. That meant more ticket sales, and more of a chance that we might break even on the whole thing. It also meant that no team would suffer the fate of traveling all the way to Germania only to head back home after one game.

The other rule change that I had pushed for had to do with the resolution of ties. The Ildoans planned to have any game that was tied after ninety minutes replayed the next day, which seemed to me like the worst thing you could do to the fans who had suffered through an entire game that was effectively wiped off the books. Instead, I insisted that the tournament would use the rules I recalled the World Cup adopting in my previous life: thirty minutes of extra time, followed by a shootout. It might not be the greatest test of overall skill, but it should make for a good show and keep things moving on schedule.

In any event, in addition to its generous budget, the Germanian World Cup Promotional Committee was given a fairly broad remit. The centerpiece of their program, sure to consume the bulk of their funds, was to build four stadiums in four cities spread throughout the country: Berun, Wien, Hambrück, and München. However, the committee was responsible for much more than that. They were charged with ensuring that every visitor to the World Cup, foreign and domestic, had a pleasant and enjoyable experience. Advertising campaigns, tour guides, hotels, transportation, they'd have to keep track of all of it.

I wanted Visha to be put in charge of the committee. She wasn't familiar with sports or experienced with big construction projects, but she was a conscientious, well-organized person. She had, much to my chagrin, done a great job running my re-election campaign, after all. Most importantly, I trusted her, and I could work well with her. While my job duties prevented me from taking the whole project in hand, I did intend to dip my oar in from time to time. With Visha running the show, I didn't have to worry that the project might get derailed by somebody taking offense at my suggestions or by any intimidation brought on by personal attention from the Chancellor.

I expected that the Diet would push for somebody older and more experienced, but they fortunately fell in line and approved Visha for the job. I'd like to think that they recognized her ability, but I figured it didn't hurt that many of them owed their positions to Visha, or that they were aware that she could boot them from their cushy jobs by leaving them off the party list in the next election.

Either way, this would be a good opportunity for her to get a major achievement under her belt. Since the opposition parties were proving completely inept at taking my place, I had started to think that I would need to groom a capable successor if I ever wanted to enjoy a quiet retirement. Visha wasn't an ideal intra-party competitor. She was far too loyal to create a proper schism. Also, my ideal successor would be as peace loving as me. Well, I could only work with what I was given. I could only hope that she would mellow with time.

It might not work out, but that was no reason not to try. If the world kept shooting down my plans for a comfortable retirement, that just meant I needed to make more plans.

ooOoo

Three days later I was seated in my conference room next to Elya. General Lergen and Foreign Minister Zettour sat across from us. A large map of Ildoa took pride of place on the table.

Elya leaned forward and made an unnecessary hand gesture as she activated an illusion spell. A red dot appeared on the map. It was fairly high up on the boot of the Ildoan peninsula, near the western coast.

"Muzzioli has been pushing up the west coast of Ildoa since he secured his hold on Roma," Elya said. "However, I am happy to report that his army has been stopped south of Piasa. Our volunteers played a key role in establishing the defense."

Elya had taken on the responsbility of maintaining a line of communication from our volunteers back to Germania. She had also helped to steer the volunteers in the right direction. It was a relief to see our efforts paying off. The terrain in Ildoa was a pain in the neck for an attacking army. If we could drag things out for long enough then the democratic faction might just be able to stand up an army that could fight Muzzioli on even ground.

"Muzzioli tried to force his way across the Arno further inland, and suffered for it. Our volunteers, together with a timely rain storm, gave his army a bloody nose," Elya said. A line lit up that stretched east to west most of the way across the neck of the peninsula. "For the most part, the Falascans are holding the north bank of the Arno. Muzzioli could try to shift his forces to the east coast, but the Falascans are building fortifications that stretch from the mountain to the sea."

The Arno river blocked off the west half of the Ildoan boot. After that was a mountain range, while the last little bit in the east was relatively open country. If the democratic forces could hold out all the way along that line, it would keep the lion's share of Ildoa's industrial production in their hands.

"We can start planning for a long war, then," I said.

It was good news that the expansionist maniac wasn't going to enjoy a quick victory that would let him point his army directly at our borders. On the other hand, that meant that our neighboring country would be going through a drawn out civil war. Not ideal, especially when the Allied Kingdom was taking such a close interest in our actions.

I knew exactly what the Empire would have done in this kind of situation, in a world where the Great War had never occurred. This kind of vulnerability in its neighbors was catnip to the Empire. The higher ups would have announced some sort of nonsense about coming to the defense of the plucky northern Ildoans, the army would have marched south, and the Empire's borders would have expanded by another few hundred kilometers.

Obviously, I wouldn't be pursuing that kind of aggressive course of action. That did leave the question, though, of what exactly we would be doing as the civil war carried on.

"About that," Zettour said. "I've received a few discreet inquiries from Ildoa regarding weapons purchases."

"We only agreed to keep our troops out of Ildoa, not our guns," I said, tapping my fingers on the table as I thought out loud. "Not that I expect that would stop the Allied Kingdom from complaining."

I didn't feel any particular obligation to adhere to the spirit of an agreement that I'd been forced into, but hiding behind technicalities only worked when you were strong enough to ignore anybody who tried to call you on it. I was pretty sure that shipping trainloads of munitions down through the Alps would draw a response from the Allied Kingdom that would more than offset any profit we gained.

Zettour shrugged. "They'll always find something to complain about."

While I respected Zettour's mental acumen, there was no getting around the fact that his mindset was still stuck in the time when the Empire was more than strong enough to ignore anybody who complained while it played fast and loose in the diplomatic arena.

"Also," Zettour added, "the more Ildoans that have our guns, the less our volunteers will stand out."

That, on the other hand, was a good point. Certainly, I'd rather have complaints coming in about arms sales rather than rumors circulating that I was covertly invading Ildoa.

I made a noncommittal noise of agreement. "Is it just guns they're looking to buy?"

"Honestly," he replied, "I think they're willing to buy whatever we'll sell."

That made sense. They had been plunged into war without any time to stockpile weaponry. They could produce what they needed in time, but right now they needed whatever weapons they could get their hands on in order to buy that time.

"Do we really want to popularize automatic weapons?" General Lergen asked.

Naturally, he would want to keep our military secrets secret until we had wrung every last drop of strategic use out of them. I could sympathize. If we were at war, for example, I would have held off on using the StG-38 until we had enough of them to win a big, dramatic battle. We weren't at war, though, and no matter what General Lergen might want us to do, our armies weren't likely to be marching all over Europe any time soon.

"Well," I replied, "we weren't going to keep our primary infantry rifle secret forever."

Elya had recently given me a report on exactly that subject, if memory served. I glanced at her and nodded.

"The Allied Kingdom has already gotten their hands on one of our StG-38s for study," she said. "Their conclusion was that it was over-engineered, under-powered, and inaccurate."

I looked back at General Lergen. "There you go. I don't want to give away our advantages either, but most countries won't adapt until they suffer an embarrassing loss or two. Besides, the cutting edge is always moving forward."

In general, it wasn't wise to get too attached to any one military technology and imagine that it would serve as a permanent trump card. Even if you did keep it secret, other countries were hardly standing still. The only way to stay ahead was to make sure that you were moving forward just as quickly as everybody else. On the other hand, that didn't mean that you should just sell your best weaponry to anybody who asked.

I did want the democrats to win the war, though. And we could use the money. The trick would be to insulate ourselves from any political fallout. I kept drumming my fingers on the table for a moment as I thought things through.

"If they can pay in hard currency, and arrange for a straw purchaser themselves, that should be enough," I said. "If some Asiatic country or other purchases our army surplus and takes delivery in Spalathum, it's not our concern what happens to it after that."

A straw purchase would put up a second layer of protection. First of all, we had never agreed to freeze all weapon sales to Ildoa. Second, even if we had, we could hardly be expected not to sell to anybody in the world. Nor was it reasonable for us to track what happened to every bit of weaponry once it was out of our hands. It should be enough of a polite fiction for diplomatic work.

The straw purchaser would take a cut of our profits in exchange for bearing the brunt of the Allied Kingdom's annoyance, but it should be worth it, in the end.

"Very well," Zettour replied. "I'll take care of the paperwork."

"Ah, also, we're rolling out upgraded airplanes and tanks soon, yes?" I said, receiving a nod from Zettour in confirmation. "Go ahead and treat anything that will be replaced within a year as surplus available for sale."

The brand new models of tanks and aircraft were still enduring their teething pains and wouldn't be seeing service any time soon. The incremental upgrades, though, were going smoothly. In the case of the planes, the limiting factor was actually the number of new engines rather than the airframes, so selling off the old planes wouldn't hurt us one bit. For the tanks, we could in theory have gotten more use out of the older frames by turning them to other purposes. You could never really have too many tracked platforms, in the General Staff's opinion. The Ildoans needed them much more than we did, though, and the cash from the sale should help our efforts to continually modernize our army.

Zettour nodded in agreement. Looking around the table, it didn't seem that there were any other outstanding issues.

"That should be all for now," I said, drawing the meeting to a close. "We'll meet again as events warrant."

Zettour and Lergen left after a bit more small talk. I tidied up the papers from the meeting as they stepped out. Elya lingered behind, closing the door behind them. She turned back and sauntered over, stopping just outside my personal space.

"You know, if Muzzioli is so troublesome, we could take a more direct hand in removing the problem," Elya said.

I gave her a searching look. Assassination wasn't exactly a standard tool in international diplomacy. If she was bothered by my scrutiny, she didn't show it, as she favored me with a smile and a wink.

"You're sure?"

"Well, there's always a little uncertainty with that kind of thing," Elya replied, shrugging. "Success or failure, though, it wouldn't come back to us."

I seriously considered taking her up on it. It was tempting, to think that the whole war could be nipped in the bud. A moment's thought, though, showed the flaw in the plan.

"No, it's not worth the trouble. Now that Muzzioli has opened Pandora's box, killing him won't bring an end to the war," I said. "Honestly, he might be more valuable to the cause as a martyr than a leader."

The last thing I wanted to do was to put it out there that killing national leaders was on the table. Especially when I topped the list of foreign leaders that people most wanted to drop dead. I might be safe enough with a computation orb in my hand, but I still had to sleep.

"All right, all right," Elya said, pouting.

I patted her on the shoulder. "Maybe next time."

Perhaps it was my imagination, but she seemed to have an extra spring in her step as she walked out. I sighed. Keeping my subordinates in line was a full time job by itself.

I didn't have much time to sit around feeling sorry for myself, though. I had barely straightened up my notes and prepared a clean sheet of paper when I heard a knock on the door. I got up and opened the door to reveal Visha and a middle aged man whose most distinguishing feature was a pair of Coke bottle glasses.

"Good to see you," I said. "Thank you for coming. Please, sit, sit."

I ushered the two of them over to the conference table. Visha ordinarily would have attended our earlier meeting, but she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the preparations for the World Cup. As expected, when given a task, she took it seriously. I was pleasantly surprised that she had already gotten the project to the point that it could use my input.

I smiled at the two of them. "So, our stadiums?"

"We've bought the land," Visha said. "Workers are getting the foundation ready."

"Good, good," I said. That was quick work. She'd been scouting out the land since I'd first called ahead with the news that we'd been awarded the bid, but still, getting the funding through the government and out to the landowners so quickly was impressive.

"Mr. Brodhun says he can build all four stadiums in time," Visha said.

"Six months is a luxury," he boasted. "I could build them all in three if I had to."

Well, you didn't get to the top of any industry by being a shrinking violet. Still, I hoped he had some basis for his confidence. If he was biting off more than he could chew, it wouldn't just be his reputation that suffered.

"Oh? Are they based off a stadium you built before?" I asked.

"I've never built a stadium before."

He said it in such a matter of fact tone that it took me a moment to process what he had said. I felt the throbbing pain behind my temples that I usually associated with a conversation with Dr. Schugel. I looked to Visha for an explanation.

"None of the firms that have direct experience were willing to commit to our deadline," Visha said.

Well, that raised a gigantic red flag. Fortunately, during the war I'd gotten used to ignoring that kind of thing and plunging on ahead. At least I wasn't getting shot at this time.

Considering that the World Cup was set to begin in just a shade under seven months, it wasn't too surprising that the more reputable firms were staying away. So we were stuck with somebody eccentric. I hoped he at least had some ability to back up his big talk.

"What makes you so confident?" I asked.

"I've built warehouses, factories, apartment blocks, all through the country. On time and under budget," he said. "Those other firms are cowards, stuck in the past. I'm building the future!"

At least he had experience with something. I suppose on some level big buildings were all similar to each other.

"The future?"

"Pre-cast concrete. You let it set in the factory under controlled conditions, then ship the pieces to the job site. All the workers have to do is put it together like a big jigsaw puzzle. Everything's down to a science," he said. "For four stadiums, I just have to expand the factory and build each piece four times."

I didn't know much about construction, but it at least sounded plausible.

"You have a blueprint, then?" I asked. My role in this process, besides acting as a general troubleshooter, was to make sure that we were presenting the right sort of image to the world. Not that I didn't trust Visha's common sense, but I feared she could be lead astray by an enthusiastic Germanian engineer.

He responded by pulling a roll of paper from his satchel. A moment's effort had it laid flat on the table. I cocked my head and studied the picture for a moment.

"This is just a big staircase," I said.

Indeed, the sketch before me depicted a broad staircase made up of many shallow steps. I wasn't sure exactly how it connected to the stadium project. Perhaps it was the entrance stairway? I tried to keep an open mind.

"It's a viewing terrace!" he protested.

"There are no seats," I observed.

If this was meant to allow fans to watch the game, presumably they would want a place to sit. I'd only ever attended about one baseball game every year at the Tokyo Dome as a result of our Vice President's enthusiasm for team building exercises, but I at least knew that much.

"Real fans prefer to stand," he said.

So he wanted to turn the entire place into standing room only tickets? I supposed it wasn't impossible. The structure of the big stairway made sense, in that case. You'd even be able to pack more people in if they were standing instead of sitting. Although, it did seem a little unsafe to have a mob of people on their feet during an exciting competition.

"Could you add a safety rail between each step and the next?" I asked.

"I suppose," he said. Perhaps it was an unfair comparison, but I was reminded of Dr. Schugel's expression every time he was forced to add a safety feature.

Also, the safety rail would be one of those jigsaw puzzle pieces that could be built off site and slotted into place. In which case, it shouldn't be a problem to add another feature to them.

"And could the safety rail be built with pieces of metal that fold down to give a place to sit?" I asked. "Just in case."

"Fine," he said. He still looked a little disgruntled, but not enough to contradict the Chancellor.

Well, we wouldn't be forcing everybody to stand throughout the World Cup. That was one problem avoided. Now, on to the next.

"What's the overall layout?" I asked.

He pulled out another sheet of paper. This one showed four rectangles, independent grandstands, arranged around a playing field. To be perfectly honest, it looked more like the seating around a high school field than a proper stadium.

"We'll need to enclose the corners," I said, picking up a pen and adding lines to the drawing so as to make entire stadium a clean rectangle. "The wall should be the same height all around."

"We can do that," he said. "Although it will make the schedule a little tighter."

So our stadiums would at least look like stadiums. The crowds would have a place to sit. I tapped my chin in thought, trying to remember what else I had seen at the ballpark. The world probably wasn't ready for keg-carrying beer girls, but there should be a market for beer and sausages.

"Also, where are the concession stands?"

He and Visha both gave me blank looks. I chuckled and shook my head.

"Taking the customer's money doesn't end once they buy their ticket, you know," I said. "Well, that gives us something to put in the corners. Two or three platforms for food and drink sales. And restrooms."

He nodded. It appeared we were still within his ability to finish on time.

I took another moment in thought. The annual company trip had usually involved beer and cracker jacks, which we now had covered. I had also once been able to watch a game from the company's luxury box after the Vice President had taken a shine to me. Of course, that was it.

"It also needs luxury boxes," I said. We didn't want the whole world to come visit and see us as some sort of rubes who didn't know how to treat VIP guests properly.

"Like an opera box?" Visha asked.

"Something like that," I said. "Here, we'll cut off the back section of the stands along one of the long sides of the field. Behind it, we build a high rise building that reaches the top level of the stadium. The section below the stands in front can be a souvenir shop. The section above will be a row or two of luxury suites."

I drew on the blueprints as I spoke, doing my best to turn my thoughts into a reasonable visual depiction of what I wanted.

"Adding something like that will push the schedule to the breaking point," Mr. Brodhun warned me.

"What if we added some aerial mages to the labor pool?" I asked. "The guys from the 203rd should have some time free."

Although the veterans of the 203rd would play an important role in getting the training battalions off the ground, for now they were just acting as glorified student advisers on the mage academy campus. It would do them some good to put in some honest physical labor.

"The 203rd? I couldn't-"

"Of course you can," I interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. "If they give you any trouble, Visha and I will whip them into shape."

Really, I doubted I would ever need to intervene. Once they were told this was a project that had to do with our national pride, their fanatical patriotism should kick in and keep them enthusiastic about the job.

"In that case, with your changes," he said, "I can get everything done in time for the World Cup."

"Excellent!" I said, clapping my hands together. "Oh, I almost forgot: what will these stadiums look like?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I ignored the sinking feeling in my stomach and kept a pleasant smile on my face. "I mean, they won't just be giant concrete boxes, right?"

"Concrete walls have a certain functional beauty that many people find quite appealing," he said. "Adding unnecessary decoration would be inefficient.

I sighed.

"Just plan for a decorative outer facade. Specify the size and weight," I said. "We'll find somebody else to actually make them pretty."

The stadium was largely going to be made up of concrete formed in molds. There was no reason that the molds necessarily had to be ugly and purely functional. Rather than try to browbeat an artistic sense into Mr. Brodhun, though, I was probably better off finding some local artists who were willing to work in concrete.

"Yes, Chancellor," he said. I got the sense that he didn't completely agree with me. He was willing to do what I told him to, though, which was good enough for me.

"Good," I said. "You should probably get to work."

He nodded, then collected the papers with my markings on them and saw himself out. Visha stayed put.

"These stadiums, with your changes," she began, until I waved her down.

I didn't blame her for coming to me with a purely functional design. The most important thing was to make sure that we had a spot for the games to take place, after all. I knew that my changes were only band-aids that barely brought the proposed stadiums up to the level of something a professional team might use.

Though I had vowed to spite the Francois and build world class facilities for the World Cup, the timetable wasn't something that I could bend to my wishes. If all we had time to build was something adequate and not embarrassing, well, at least we wouldn't be embarrassed in front of the whole world.

"Yes, yes, I know," I said. "We'll have to set aside some time soon to survey the local architecture."

Even if the buildings were simple and functional, we might get some mileage out of making them look nice. It would also help distinguish the stadiums from each other if they matched up to the architecture near where they were being built. I certainly wouldn't mind getting a chance to stretch my legs and take in the existing architecture of Germania's big cities.

"We could grab some food, too, while we're at it," I continued. "Next Tuesday in Wien, maybe?"

While Germanian cuisine left a lot to be desired, some of the local regions had decent food. I was happy to seize any chance to change up my diet.

Visha flushed with excitement at the thought of Wien's delicacies.

"Yes! It's a, ah, plan."

I smiled.

"Don't forget, the stadiums are only part of the job," I said. "You need to make sure everybody who visits walks away impressed with Germania."

She nodded, although a bit of discomfort had taken the place of her earlier excitement.

"I know," she said. "It feels a little strange. Like putting on a big play, but with real people."

Visha was naturally an honest and straightforward person. I could see that she would have some trouble adapting to the concept of marketing. Fortunately, I was there to help her along.

"Think of it like putting on makeup before a date," I said. "We just need to put our best foot forward as a country."

Even if our country was poor, even our stadiums weren't up to par, visitors could still have a good time. If we could keep them supplied with enough beer, we might even get a positive story or two in the foreign press.

ooOoo


	29. Chapter 29

ooOoo

I had a meeting the next day with Mr. Lloyd, the ambassador from the Allied Kingdom. When I had reached out to his office, he had agreed to see me at my earliest possible convenience. As Chancellor, I was used to people showing up quickly when I called, but usually the foreign ambassadors would drag their feet and engage in petty little power plays. I would have liked to think that he was a sports fan who was enthusiastic about the World Cup, but usually I wasn't that lucky.

As I'd feared, Mr. Lloyd seemed to have a lot on his mind as he stepped into my office. The usually reticent ambassador even took the initiative in opening the substantive discussion.

"The Allied Kingdom has not changed its position regarding Imperial unification," he said. "We still stand behind the Treaty of Londinium."

"Of course," I replied. "I do as well."

I was relieved that his concerns were over something so easy to resolve.

"If need be," he began, then paused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Did somebody announce a plebiscite?" I asked. "I keep telling them it's a bad time."

The Ildoan Civil War, and the Allied Kingdom's insistence on neutrality, had sent shock waves through Europe's diplomatic community. On the bright side, Dacia had finally been pushed off the fence and had officially sealed its alliance to Germania. We had long since finished the preparations for the pipeline and had set to building it with a will. We'd soon be out of the embarrassing situation of facing national disaster if the Unified States ever imposed an oil embargo.

On the less bright side, many of the other Imperial successor states had decided that this was a fine time to run plebiscites attempting to reunite with Germania. I had half expected it from Pullska, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, considering their eastern neighbor. Daneland was a surprise, but it turned out that they had been tying themselves more and more tightly to our economy as the Great Depression wound on. They also found the Legadonian military a bit lacking. At least Lothiern had shown an admirable streak of independence and seemed content to stand on their own.

All in all, it was disappointing. I had thought professional politicians and diplomats would be better at reading the mood. The Allied Kingdom had flexed its muscles over Ildoa and obviously wasn't willing to tolerate any changes to the map of Europe at the moment.

Also, technically speaking, the only reason Germania was permitted to rearm was thanks to the Treaty of Londinium. It wasn't a treaty that had been imposed on us, but a treaty that I had freely sought out and signed. I didn't appreciate having my hard work undermined, even if the widespread enthusiasm for joining our country was flattering. It would be even worse if they had decided to go ahead with their plebiscites even after I advised against it.

Mr. Lloyd looked a bit surprised by my question. To his credit, he soon returned to his usual even-keeled demeanor.

"No," he said. He paused for a long moment, then sighed. "I'm sorry, I thought you called me here to discuss the treaty."

I smiled, glad for the chance to change the subject to something more productive.

"I wanted to discuss a far more immediate concern," I said. "The World Cup!"

He cocked his head in curiosity. "What about it?"

"I'm told that Albion's team has a standing invitation," I said, "but they don't intend to participate."

"Yes, I believe our football association's president has stated that the Allied Kingdom's tournament will provide better competition," he replied.

The Allied Kingdom's arrogance on the subject of football was grating, but they had the skill to back it up. In an exhibition game against an all-Europe all star team a few years ago, the Albish national team had won by four goals. Germanian players hadn't been invited to participate, but it wasn't like they would have made much of a difference. I knew I wouldn't be able to talk their team into coming by touting the level of competition.

"And he's certainly not interested in helping a Francois organization promote itself as the world's authority on football," I said. I couldn't blame him. In my limited dealings with Robert Guerrant, the so-called international football association's president, I'd found my patience sorely tested.

"Quite right," Mr. Lloyd said.

As expected, dislike of the Francois was a useful tool to build international understanding. I felt a little bad about using the same trick over and over again, but it did keep working.

"Well, do you think you could persuade the team to come to the tournament this year?" I asked.

"The football association is a private organization," Mr. Lloyd said, shaking his head. "I'm afraid His Majesty's government can't simply order them around."

"Persuade, I said persuade," I said, gesturing with my hands for emphasis. "I have a feeling they will listen to you with a more open mind than they would if I were to write them."

He seemed curious about where I was going with this line of argument. "What do you want to tell them?"

"First, as to the practical matters," I said. "Germania will be providing housing and practice facilities for every team that attends the World Cup. We will cover the lost salary suffered by any non-professional footballers. Finally, every team will be provided with a dirigible for travel to Germania."

I had implemented these policies in an attempt to boost participation from South America, but they might also help entice the Albish into attending. Really, the infrastructure around international sporting competitions was just too primitive. While there was a certain charm in the idea that a national level player would avoid the World Cup because he wanted to keep his day job, it would be a shame to let that kind of thing deprive the spectators of the sight of true competition between the world's best.

I had been a little nervous about the dirigible construction. Fortunately, the Bützow Company had developed the ability to turn out the things in job lots during the war. They'd been making them one at a time recently in order to test out the civilian market, but in the face of a large order they were able to reactivate their old capabilities and churn out airships at a rapid pace. Which was fortunate, as they were also a big factor in my plans to put a good show on TV.

"Quite generous," Mr. Lloyd replied.

"It's our duty to be a good host," I said. "Besides, the cost isn't all that much in the overall scheme of things."

Providing first class treatment to a few hundred people really wasn't much of a burden in the context of a big time event like this. I had no interest in harming our international image by trying to count pfennigs under the eyes of the world. It would have been nice if lavish benefits were sufficient to entice the Albish team into coming to Germania.

"However, I suspect solving the practical problems won't be enough," I said. "So let me ask you this: are the Albish inherently superior at football?"

The heart of their refusal to participate had to do with the quality of the competition. While it was true that their team was superior, I didn't think that they had really thought the whole situation through before they adopted their policy of splendid isolation.

"How do you mean?"

"Do the Albish as a people have some sort of inborn ability that lets them run faster, jump higher, and play better than anybody else?" I asked. "Or do you enjoy an advantage right now because your nation invented the sport and has spent more time on it?"

Football had been the national sport of Albion for nigh on a century or more, depending on how you figured the history. It stood to reason that they would be better at it than other nations who had only been playing the game for a few decades. It also stood to reason that others would catch up eventually. Of course, I could work through this chain of reasoning more easily than most thanks to the unfair advantage of having watched England get knocked out of the World Cup every four years like clockwork in my previous life.

"I suppose having a head start must have helped," Mr. Lloyd allowed.

"Exactly! But that sort of head start will be used up sooner or later," I said. "Whether it's the World Cup or some new event, there will always be international football. In the future, you might not be able to win even if you wanted to. So, isn't it better to win some trophies now, so you at least have something to look back on with pride?"

The Empire had a long history showing the value of bullying people when you were on top. The best part about doing it in sporting competitions was that you got to keep the trophies afterwards even when you started losing.

"An interesting chain of reasoning," Mr. Lloyd allowed.

"Alternatively, if you really have it in for Monsieur Guerrant, the best way to ruin his fun isn't to stay out of the event," I said. "You should enter, and crush everybody. Crowds will eventually lose interest in a lopsided competition, and the World Cup will wither and die."

Really, the standoffish approach adopted by the Albish team was the worst of both worlds. No glory for them, and no humiliation for their enemies.

"That's quite something to hear from the event's host," Mr. Lloyd said.

"As long as this World Cup is successful," I said, waving a hand dismissively, "I don't really care about the next one."

The most important thing was making sure that I, and my country, weren't embarrassed on the international stage. The first entrance by the Albish team into an international competition would draw a tremendous amount of attention. By the next tournament it would be old news, but putting on a good tournament four years from now would be somebody else's problem.

"Well, I'll pass along your arguments to our football association," Mr. Lloyd said. "Although I really can't guarantee any results."

"That's all I can ask for," I said. "As for those countries seeking reunification..."

I trailed off, trying to think how to express my thoughts. Mr. Lloyd's expression noticeably cooled at the change in topic.

"Yes?"

"Please don't be too harsh on them," I said. "After all, look at things from their point of view."

I thought the other successor states were foolish to even broach the subject of reunification, but I hoped that the Allied Kingdom could find it in their hearts to let the faux pas slide. The last thing the world needed was tension arising between countries that should all be fighting on the same side against communism in defense of human freedom.

"They're staring down three million men in the Red Army, hardened veterans from the war in the east," I continued. "On their side of the equation, they have some border fortifications and your guarantee."

To be fair, the fortifications along Pullska's border were well designed and well built. Heavy artillery sighted in on prepared killing fields, machine guns entrenched in strategic locations, even underground tunnels in areas to allow movement from one hard point to the next. Czechoslovakia was working on bringing their eastern border up to snuff, so that the Rus wouldn't be able to simply drive around the Pulish defenses. It was an impressive force multiplier. Still, given the disparity in manpower and industrial capacity, a mere force multiplier wouldn't be enough to hold the commies at bay forever.

"I suppose it would feel precarious," Mr. Lloyd allowed.

The fundamental problem was that the Allied Kingdom was taking on the commitments of a hegemon, but they obviously still considered themselves a naval power first and foremost. They had recently raised their naval spending up close to war time levels without any corresponding increase in spending on their army. For them, of course, the navy could keep foreign armies away from their shores. For their allies and protectorates, though, it would be cold comfort to know that Albion was safe as the Red Army marched through eastern Europe.

"I had hoped that the international community could come together to provide security for small, threatened nations," I said. "But considering the Francois intransigence, the only path left to stabilize the situation is unilateral action."

It would have been nice if I could have talked the other parties to the Treaty of Londinium into an amendment that would allow for a targeted anti-communist military alliance. Considering de Lugo's attitude in Amstreldam, that was obviously off the table. The next best thing would be for the Allied Kingdom to make a serious commitment to Pullska's independence.

It was only fair that the Allied Kingdom be expected to maintain a larger army if they wanted to dictate the behavior of the countries of Europe. Even if they didn't match the size of the Red Army, if they could at least station some men in Pullska it would be valuable proof of their willingness to go to war in order to stop communist aggression. It would also, conveniently, protect Germania's eastern border from the Russy Federation.

It wouldn't be diplomatic to come right out and demand that Albion spend more money in order to provide for Germania's security. However, there was nothing wrong with pointing out the reality of the situation and allowing Mr. Lloyd to draw the natural conclusion.

He gave me a serious look. "What do you plan to do in eastern Europe, exactly?"

"Me? Nothing," I said. "I won't interfere with anybody who decides to do me a favor."

I was happy to give Albion the green light to intervene in Pullska. The more countries that put armies between me and the Rus, the better.

"I will repeat your message to my superiors," he said, "although just as with the football association, I can make no guarantees."

"Of course," I said. "Diplomacy is a tricky business."

As much as their attitude could drive me up the wall, an active and assertive Allied Kingdom was perhaps the best hope for lasting peace in Europe. If the restraint they insisted on in Ildoa was the price to pay for an Albish army in Pullska, that would be a good bargain. It was almost enough to make me pray that their appeasement caucus would be sidelined in the future. Instead of that, though, I'd just have to rely on reason and self-interest to direct their foreign policy to our mutual benefit.

ooOoo

I had another big meeting later in the afternoon. Back when I was working my way up the ladder, I had always imagined that life at the top would involve a lot of lounging around, pushing work and blame onto other people while stealing credit for myself. I certainly never envisioned that there would be so many meetings. Come to think of it, life in the military had also involved a lot of meetings. At least back then I had enjoyed regular outdoor excursions, albeit with the occasional risk of enemy artillery.

Bah, the pressure really was getting to me if I was feeling nostalgic for front line duty. I shook my head and took hold of myself as Elya knocked on the door and escorted my guests into the room.

Visha was present, of course, as she was for everything related to the staging of the World Cup. Zettour as well, both to bring him up to speed on new technology and to give him time to prepare for the inevitable issues of diplomacy that would accompany international broadcasting. Finally, our special guests: August Karolus and Georg Alexander, the CEO and Chief Technical Director, respectively, of Telefunken, the Germanian television corporation.

I welcomed my guests and called the meeting to order. Considering the press of events, we didn't have time to waste on small talk. Fortunately, both of the men from Telefunken were professional engineers, the sort of men who were happy to get straight to business.

"I was very impressed when I saw your device for the first time," I said. "I believe the television has more potential than even you may have realized."

However grandiose their dreams for television might be, I doubted they could come close to the reality I had witnessed back in the twenty first century.

"Thank you, Chancellor," they replied, almost synchronized.

"Now, I understand that the television signal is transmitted as a type of radio wave," I said. "So it may be broadcast through the air or carried on a wire?"

The two men looked at each other for a moment before Alexander replied. "That's correct."

I smiled. I knew that in the modern world, television could be sent in all sorts of ways. It was a relief to discover that the key building blocks already existed, even in these primitive times.

"Excellent. I want the World Cup to be broadcast to every city in Germania," I said, "and to the capital of every participating country!"

The two looked at each other again. This time, they seemed much less enthusiastic about contributing their expertise. Finally, Karolus took the lead.

"Chancellor, the broadcast signal can only be viewed up to a hundred kilometers away," he said.

"The signals don't follow the curvature of the earth," Alexander explained. "With a transmitter particularly high up, it might be able to reach one hundred and twenty kilometers."

"Right. Ideally, we would bounce the signal off of a satellite in geosynchronous orbit," I said. "But we can make do with what we have."

In my wilder planning sessions, I had considered asking Dr. Schugel to put together a rocket capable of launching a communications satellite into space. Unfortunately, getting something into orbit still left a lot of difficult work to be done before you had a functioning broadcast system. I also had the unsettling feeling that Schugel would find a way to kick off a war if I let him start playing around with rockets again.

I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and unrolled a map of Germania. Taking a marker, I began drawing circles around the areas with significant population. I did my best to give each circle a radius of a hundred kilometers on the map. It didn't take as many as I had feared to get most of the country covered.

"For broadcast within Germania, we would start with one central station that is connected by wire to subsidiary broadcasters," I said. "Based on a hundred kilometer radius, perhaps ten or twenty stations would cover most of the country. I'll leave it to you to work out the optimal arrangement."

I couldn't delegate all of my work, but I could still push quite a bit of it onto other people. When you did that sort of thing as a subordinate, it was called shirking. As the boss, it was called leadership.

"Of course, it would be impractical to lay a cable all the way out to the Unified States," I said. "That limit of a hundred kilometers... how would it change if the broadcast platform and receiving antenna were five thousand meters in the air?"

Alexander, bless his heart, pulled out a pad of paper and began working through the trigonometry problem. I stayed quiet and let him work. It didn't take nearly as long as I feared before he finished writing and looked up from his work.

"In that case, a signal might stretch three or four hundred kilometers."

Not bad. I did some mental math of my own and started to think that this just might work. We'd have an awful lot of dirigibles left over at the end of the World Cup, but that was a problem for the future.

"We will be producing a great many airships over the next few months," I said. "What I require from you is a signal repeater that can be carried aloft and operate for hours at a time."

"You mean to build a chain of zeppelins to stretch across the ocean?" Alexander asked.

"Exactly," I replied.

He exchanged another look with his boss. "When a signal is repeated that many times, the quality will be degraded."

"I understand. I only ask that you do your best to built the repeater so that it reproduces the signal faithfully while filtering out noise produced in transmission," I said. "Pioneering efforts are always a challenge. To some extent, the world should be impressed that we've made the effort, even if the final result is imperfect."

Nobody cared if the dancing bear at the circus danced well. It was enough that it danced at all. If we could broadcast live video all the way across an ocean, I didn't think anybody would quibble about the quality. At least not for the first few weeks.

I had always figured that the overseas portion of my broadcast plan was a bit of a long shot. I certainly wouldn't be announcing it to the public until we had done enough of the technical work to be sure it was possible. Still, we wouldn't know what was possible until we tried. Besides, even if we couldn't get a signal all the way across the ocean, the effort put in might produce other worthwhile technology.

I turned to address Visha. "All this equipment will put a dent in the committee's budget, but it will give us a tremendous amount of control over how the world sees the World Cup, and, in turn, Germania. As they say, seeing is believing."

The ultimate purpose of our television broadcast was to fool the viewing public. Our stadiums would be rush jobs. Our tourism industry completely untested at hosting such a large event. Our cuisine would be, well, our cuisine. None of that would matter as long as we could make everything look good on TV.

A healthy dose of television magic would have foreign audiences convinced that we were knocking everything out of the park. By the time newspaper reports came back that revealed the ugly truth, that first impression would already be set in place. How did the saying go? A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. I'd just be helping it on its way.

"The television set that I saw didn't look that impressive," Visha said, "but if people around the world could see our work on display all at the same time, that would be amazing."

I could always trust Visha to put a positive spin on things. Of course, she didn't have the broad experience to compare our efforts to the kind of spectacle that could be put on by a real economic powerhouse like the Allied Kingdom or the Unified States. That was fine. She was doing the best she could. The deficiencies we needed to spackle over were due to the compressed schedule, not any problem with her efforts. I was happy to cover up our inevitable failings without rubbing Visha's nose in what we were doing.

I nodded. "Also, you should get that budget back as soon as the Diet approves funding for the Public Television Broadcast project."

"Public television?" she asked.

"It should be very useful for the government to have the ability to broadcast video throughout the country," I said. "The World Cup has given us a deadline and a convenient source of short term funds, but this was something we would have done eventually no matter what."

It would be a hassle to get another funding bill through the Diet so soon after they had splashed out for the World Cup, but our party's majority was substantial enough that even a few defectors wouldn't stop a bill from being passed. In the mean time, we could get things started under the theory that we were promoting the World Cup. It was even sort of true.

"As you say," Zettour said, "seeing is believing."

I nodded. As expected, Zettour was quick to see the possibilities. Despite his age, he was always looking at the world with fresh eyes. I could see from his expression that he was already considering how a state owned broadcast network could be used by the government as a propaganda organ. It was true that it would be a formidable tool for social control.

However, Zettour didn't have the advantage of my future experience. He couldn't possibly anticipate how exposure to television broadcasts would gradually transform naive viewers into sophisticated consumers of the news. Or, in other words, into cynical bastards. By starting a public broadcasting network as quickly as possible, I would get that process started. That way, by the time I finally extricated myself from the Chancellor's position, there should be several competing private stations as well as the public network, all broadcasting to a skeptical audience.

I didn't want anybody coming up behind me to create their own cult of personality using broadcast television. Inoculating the public against that kind of thing was a useful side effect of my efforts to put the best possible spin on our World Cup.

"You'll have your share of work to do as well," I said.

"Broadcast rights and broadcast sites," Zettour said.

It was going to be a tremendous hassle to arrange. Exactly the sort of task that I was thrilled to slough off on a subordinate. In more advanced countries, he would be trying to fit our broadcast plans into existing regulatory regimes. Not an easy task, but at least relatively straightforward. In more primitive countries, he would have to guide them in the creation of a regulatory regime in the first place before securing a license. Or he could just bribe somebody to let our particular broadcast go out sans regulation. Honestly, I wouldn't be looking too closely into how he got the job done.

"All over the world," I said, nodding again. "Although, in the countries with only a few television sets, we may be able to do a more focused broadcast straight from the dirigibles."

"Should I plan on finding a place for the television sets as well?"

"I'd prefer that such things happen as private transactions," I said. "But I suppose it would be a good idea to provide a demonstration set or two for local big shots and their friends to use."

It was hard to sell somebody a television set in a country with no television broadcasts. Conversely, it was hard to justify the expense of a television broadcast when nobody owned television sets. I hoped that by providing a demonstration of the technology, along with a little cash, we could jump start the process.

There were a few more things to discuss, largely having to do with staffing for our nascent public broadcasting service and the logistical challenges in shipping television sets all over the world, but no major problems popped up. It still remained to be seen what sort of technical problems would arise in the future. Still, with everybody on board with the project and a general understanding of our goal, the plan to pull the wool over the eyes of the viewing public was off to a good start.

ooOoo

I had one more meeting the next day to close out the week. This meeting, though, wouldn't see me cooped up in my office. No, I would be traveling for this one. Dr. Schugel had finally announced the completion of the next generation computation orb. I didn't care for the man, but I could admit that I was curious about his work. I'd want to see the orb for myself even if it wasn't part of my job.

The testing facility was tucked away in the countryside of eastern Germania. An easy trip for an aerial mage. I was accompanied by the officers of the 203rd. Neumann, Koenig, and Weiss all had a professional interest in the new orb. As it was a Schugel product, I had insisted on a final layer of safety checks after the test pilots had signed off on the orb: if any one of us had a problem with the orb after a test flight, we could send it back to be reworked.

Ordinarily, Visha would have come along for something like this, but she was swamped with work for the World Cup. I felt a little bad about it but, well, better her than me.

We landed in a small field that had been cleared in front of the research facility. Somewhat to my surprise, we were met there by Dr. Fischer. While he had done good work for us over the years, I hadn't expected Dr. Schugel to be gracious enough to share the spotlight in a moment like this with anybody else.

"Is Dr. Schugel still in the lab?" I asked.

"Ah, no," Dr. Fischer said, before pausing to clear his throat. "When he delivered the finished blueprints, he said that the only way to create the next generation of computation orb after this will be divine inspiration."

I frowned.

"So," Dr. Fischer continued, seeing my confusion, "he left to find a mountaintop and pray."

I sighed. A single exposure to Being X had completely warped Schugel's mind. No, no, I'd known him before. Schugel had been pre-warped. Before, though, he had at least been able to comply with military regulation. These days, it was only my good nature that kept him from a court martial.

I did take some satisfaction at the thought of having his pay frozen until he came back from his pilgrimage.

"Did he at least finish the other projects before he disappeared?"

As it turned out, he had. First, In addition to producing a greatly improved version of the Type 97, Schugel and his team had increased the sensitivity of our magic detection equipment. This didn't help much against completely stealthy casting, but the work of the professionals had long since exceeding my initial fumblings into covert magic.

The scientists now divided casting into three categories. First was the ordinary, full emission casting that was still the standard for other nations. Second was the fully stealthy methodology that I had developed, which was useful but limited in scope. Third was reduced emission casting that had resulted when they applied the methods of stealth casting to spells that were too powerful to be done with complete stealth. Colloquially, this was referred to as loud, silent, and quiet casting, respectively.

The new detectors more or less offset the advantage of quiet casting. As long as we maintained our technological advantage, we would be able to detect foreign mages from farther away than usual, while our mages would be able to get closer than usual before being detected. Of course, developing this type of technology was a race that never ended. It would have been nice if Schugel could have kept his nose to the grindstone and contributed to the work of continual refinement, but on the other hand it was probably a good idea to have more grounded scientists developing the devices that would be rolled out for use by actual soldiers.

The scientists had also finished up my little side project, a dedicated sporting orb. My attempts to organize a demonstration of aerial lacrosse had met with limited success. The Allied Kingdom, Unified States, Francois Republic, Legadonia Entente, and we ourselves would be participating in a round robin of exhibition matches to be played before World Cup games. That was all well and good.

Where I'd run into problems had been in developing a standardized orb. I thought that it made sense in order for the game to be fair that everybody should be using the same orb. However, the other nations seemed intent on turning the game into a showcase for their magical technology. It wouldn't be a problem now, but who could say what cutting edge military orbs would be capable of in twenty years? I thought there ought to be limits in order to promote the game.

I hoped that if we developed our own sporting orb and had success with it, then other nations might be willing to adopt it as the standard. To that end, I had asked that the scientists start with an orb built to the specifications of the captured Francois unit, tighten up the flight module a bit, and take out anything that wasn't used in aerial lacrosse. The resulting orb should be reasonably competitive. The first batch had already been produced and was on its way to the magical academy for the cadets to use in their aerial lacrosse games.

All of that was just a sideshow for the main event, though. The long awaited successor to the Type 97 had finally been declared fit for duty. I was eager to see if it stood up to Dr. Schugel's claims.

It didn't look like much. When Dr. Fischer's assistant brought out four computation orbs, neatly arranged on a small cushion, I thought at first that he had mistakenly grabbed some Type 97s off the shelf. That lackluster first impression vanished as soon as I picked one of the orbs up.

Pushing just a little bit of mana through the new Type 99 was enough to demonstrate that it was a whole new animal. The mana flowed, smooth and easy, with barely any direction from me. I estimated that the overall mana flow capacity was at least half again as much as the Type 97.

Even more intriguing than the updates to the hardware, though, were the changes to the software. I could feel that this orb provided access to all of the silent casting capabilities of the H-class, allowing for stealth operations with a front line orb. However, that wasn't the limit of the changes. The whole combat suite had been completely redone.

The four of us lifted off the ground, eager to try out the new changes. I gave Dr. Fischer a friendly wave, ignoring his complaint that we hadn't done the safety briefing. I had survived working directly for Dr. Schugel for months. Having a test pilot between myself and his raw work product was a luxury.

I could feel the difference in the flight spell as soon as I was in the air. As I flew up through the low lying clouds, I was using noticeably less mana than usual. Part of the process of reducing the spell's mana signature must have involved making the spell itself more efficient. A quick round of tests revealed that the whole spell suite had received a similar level of optimization.

Once we were all up above the cloud layer and comfortable with the basic operation of the orb, it was time for more rigorous testing in the form of a game of aerial tag. Besides proving an entertaining diversion, two facts were soon established. First, my small stature and complete trust in body enhancement spells meant that, despite their own improvement, none of the men could keep up with me in tests of agility. Second, the improvement to the combat spells had its limits.

While the spells were more efficient and the orb could handle a higher mana load, these two factors didn't quite compound as I had hoped. Each spell had a mana ceiling close to its ceiling in the Type 97. So performance was improved, but only due to the efficiency. The orb's overall mana capacity came into play while multi tasking. The Type 99 could keep up multiple spells with a level of comfort and ease that left the Type 97 in the dust. While it couldn't keep up with the raw power of the Type 95, it did have capabilities that my Being X-cursed orb lacked.

Eventually, the aerial tag started to get boring. That was when I announced that we were starting the speed trials, picked a direction, and took off as fast as I could.

I quickly blasted through the Type 97's top speed of 350 miles per hour. When I hit the mana cap on the flight spell and settled in at a steady pace, I was traveling at 400 miles per hour. It was impressive. In a way, though, it was a little disappointing. When I'd first taken flight and sensed the potential of the Type 99, I'd harbored hopes that this might be the world's first supersonic orb.

Pegging the needle at 400 miles per hour was hardly taxing my own mana capacity. I frowned, idly watching the blanket of clouds below me as I focused on taking a deeper look at the flight module.

It was the complicated machinations of the flight module that made flight feel like the simple application of force in the direction you wanted to travel. There was a reason flight was nearly impossible before the advent of the computation orb. I couldn't spin up a military grade flight spell from scratch. I might be able to tweak the provided spell around the edges, though.

The structure of the spell created by the flight module had a component that was analogous to the engine on an airplane. It took in mana and generated force. This was the limiting factor for speed, as it could only use so much mana. I couldn't improve on the magical engine. It had, after all, been developed through months of hard scientific labor. With the right mental tweak, though, I could copy it, and wire it into the spell so that I was now effectively operating off of two engines.

At first, there was no change. Then I realized that I had left the flight module's overall mana limiter in place. I ripped that out, replacing it with the equivalent of a penny in a burned out fuse. Then I poured on the power.

I let out a whoop as I surged ahead of the other three. Neumann called out something, but I ignored him to focus on keeping the flight spell stable. As I'd hoped, adding in a second engine had let me use more power. As I'd feared, I was wasting quite a bit of mana. I'd also probably thrown away any hope of keeping the spell at all quiet.

Still, none of that could dampen my mood as I reached a speed of five hundred miles per hour. I had spent far too much time recently cooped up in my office. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been able to push myself like this. There wasn't even any enemy anti aircraft fire to worry about.

It was moments like this that I thought I could have been happy as a test pilot if not for Dr. Schugel and that damned Being X.

I had run into the limits of even my modified flight spell, though. Fortunately, having made the change once, it was simple enough to change it again. I slotted in a third engine and barely paused before pouring on the power and accelerating once more.

I was starting to feel the mana cost, now. The airflow around me was acting strangely, knocking at my shield and trying to throw me off course. I was also running into diminishing returns, again. This time I had topped out at five hundred and seventy five miles per hour.

I probably only had enough in me to power another two magical engines. Maybe three. I wasn't sure if that would be enough to get me through the sound barrier, but there was only one way to find out.

I was running through the changes I'd need to make in order to wedge in two more engines when the Type 99's mana output stuttered.

The flight spell that had been providing steady thrust suddenly gave me a shove to the side. At the same time, the shield spell that had been presenting an aerodynamic profile flickered off, letting the oncoming wind slam into my body. In an instant, I had gone from controlled flight to a wild, tumbling fall.

I saw the sky overhead, then the clouds below. Sky. Clouds. Sky. Clouds.

I fought down the rising nausea and focused my attention on the Type 99. I had to keep the spells going. The physical enhancement spell was the only thing keeping me alive. The overall mix of spells was the only thing keeping the orb in one piece. For the output to go crazy like this meant that the physical integrity of the orb was gone. An emergency shutdown would set it off like a bomb, right next to my body.

The blue sky flashed by in front of my eyes. Clouds again. Sky. Then I was surrounded by white as I plunged into the cloud.

I kept drawing down the power to the flight spell. I kept the physical enhancement powered up as much as I could. A little less power to the shield spell. A little less for flight. A little less, and I was almost to the point where I could shut the orb down safely.

Then I finally lost control of myself and vomited. At the same time, the connection to the Type 99 slipped away and I stopped feeding it any mana at all. A breathless moment later, I could feel heat radiating from where the Type 99 was attached to my flight suit, but it seemed the explosion had been defused. Our brand new orb wasn't going to kill me.

Of course, the fall still might.

Fortunately, I'd been in this situation before. I spun the Type 97 up to speed quickly, first ramping up a body reinforcement spell to tamp down the residual nausea and suppress the symptoms of whiplash that were already making themselves felt. Then I powered up the flight module's hover suite, gradually slowing my fall and damping down my momentum. A few nervous seconds later, I was hovering in place, still inside the cloud.

I decided it was probably best not to check my altitude. Instead, I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and cleaned myself up as best I could. That done, I began ascending up through the cloud to wait for Weiss, Neumann, and Koenig to catch up.

Now that the moment of crisis was over, I could also begin cursing my own foolishness. I had only recently listened sympathetically to General Richtoffer as he shared his fears that aerial combat was evolving faster than he could keep up. And yet I had thought that I could pick up where I left off and push the cutting edge of aerial magic just because I used to be a test pilot.

I wasn't out here every day putting in the flight time needed to stay on top of evolving technology. I was sitting in my office making sure we didn't stumble into another Great War. Which, admittedly, was important, but it certainly wasn't keeping my skills sharp. Not if I'd forgotten the basic fact that had been drilled into me after I melted the very first orb I was given: any orb would fail if you pushed too much mana through it. Limiters were put in place for a reason.

I should have treated this exercise like the simple demonstration that it obviously was, instead of clinging to past glories and trying to show off. From now on, I needed to leave this kind of thing to the professionals.

I had mostly gotten through cursing myself out by the time that the other three caught up. At least, I was able to present a calm facade in front of them.

"What happened?" Neumann asked, as soon as they'd reached a conversational distance. "I thought I sensed something pretty dramatic."

"Just testing the limits of the new orb," I said, waving a hand dismissively. I didn't wait for a reply before setting off back to the lab.

If anybody noticed that I was only doing three hundred and fifty miles per hour on the flight back, they were at least able to read the mood and keep any comments to themselves. By the time we landed, I was more or less back on an even keel.

"Ah, Chancellor," Dr. Fischer said, rushing out to greet us. "What did you think?"

"Do you still use form LM-347-X?" I asked.

I'd been both horrified and comforted back when I learned that the Imperial military had a specific form to be filled out in the event that a computation orb was destroyed in non-combat testing. It was reassuring that somebody had a plan for every situation, but alarming that they expected the situation to keep recurring. I'd filled out enough of the things back when I worked directly for Schugel that I'd practically memorized the layout.

"You really did work with Dr. Schugel," Dr. Fischer said with a chuckle. "We do still use the form, although we don't go through as many as we used to."

"Please get one for me," I said, pulling the misshapen lump that used to be the Type 99 out of my pocket and showing it to him.

His face went white. He turned and went inside without another word. I sighed. Even if the problem was a result of my own error more than anything else, I still intended to be enough of a professional to record what had happened in case our scientists could get some use out of it.

"We should probably get the Deputy Chancellor a copy of that form," Neumann said.

I looked at him in horror.

"No need for that."

After all the teasing I'd given Visha over being rusty, the last thing I needed was to hand her documentation proving I'd lost my edge.

ooOoo

 _AN: I generally use English for stuff that's in the point of view character's native tongue, but I will use the foreign language for acronyms if I can. So here the aerial mage forms are filed under the "Luftmagie" category._


	30. Chapter 30

_AN: I double checked the length of my previous work, and I can confirm that this is by far the longest single narrative I've written. At this point I'm not sure I'll be able to wrap things up at 200k words as planned._

ooOoo

Flying made everything so much easier. The trip from Berun to Wien would have taken most of a day by train. I was able to make the trip in a little under two hours with my computation orb, even after slowing down to accompany the escort the Czechoslovakians insisted on providing as I overflew their territory.

It was a cold, clear morning. I'd bundled into my old military issue wool overcoat in addition to my usual flying clothes, and even so I was still diverting a little extra mana towards keeping my hands warm. The view, though, was spectacular. Neumann had wrangled a week off with his American paramour in exchange for his silence regarding my testing debacle, so I was left to enjoy the sights by myself once I left the Czechs behind at the border.

Visha had been in Wien for the last few days, making sure that our World Cup preparations started off on the right foot. The stadium had not even started to take shape, but the construction site did look reassuringly busy as it came into view. The workers below were scurrying back and forth with purpose. I could only hope that they weren't just putting on a show while they knew I'd be watching.

It didn't take me long to spot the one major landmark in the area. A large billboard, painted bright white. Once everything was finished, it would stand in pride of place in a plaza outside of the stadium to serve as the canvas onto which a team of mages would project illusions depicting the action going on inside. For now, it made for a convenient place to meet.

My first thought when I saw her was that I was badly under dressed. Where my clothing was strictly utilitarian, Visha had bundled up against the cold in a stylish set of furs. She was also, unless my eyes deceived me, wearing makeup.

Really, though, my clothing was definitely appropriate for visiting a construction site and then taking a stroll around town. However, while I would be leaving in the afternoon, Visha would still be working hard to get the stadium built. She probably had a meeting scheduled with some of the local big shots who would be helping to make everything go smoothly. There was no need to overthink either of our wardrobe choices.

Visha welcomed me to Wien with a friendly hug, then led the way to the construction site. Along the way, she filled me in on the work she had been supervising. It sounded like quite a bit, considering that she had only been in town for a few days. Well, that was to be expected with such a large project.

Even so, when I looked over the stadium site from the ground it still mostly looked like a collection of randomly placed holes and piles of dirt. I couldn't really make out the order that was to form out of this chaos. Of course, that's why I was leaving the work to the professionals. The workers seemed to be in good spirits, at least. They couldn't have been thrilled to have a distant boss fly in to interrupt their usual routine, but they at least put on a show being happy that I was taking a personal interest in their efforts.

We didn't linger around the stadium site for long. We were on a schedule, after all. The next stop was the planned stadium village. Rather than inflicting the crowds and traffic associated with major events on an existing neighborhood, we had decided to locate the stadium on the outskirts of town and build up the capacity to handle throngs of drunken tourists at the same time that we built the stadium itself.

Fortunately, it was much easier for us to acquire an appropriate plot of land than it would have been in modern Japan. As it happened, an old aristocratic family had once used this area as a country retreat. They were unhappy with the way that the growing city was encroaching on their territory, and were happy to sell at a reasonable price. I suspected that having their name associated with the World Cup had some allure, as well.

For now, the whole area was still unimproved grasslands, save for a few dirt roads. Carefully placed stakes and ropes told the tale of the future layout of the place for someone who looked carefully. One end of the main road would end at the stadium, of course. Several blocks away, the other anchor for the road would be the train station. There would be train service both from Wien's city center and from the park and ride facility currently under construction over by the autobahn.

The plan was for the main road to be largely used by pedestrians, and to line it with bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops. The streets working away from the main road would see more of a mix of hotels, grocery stores, and eventually ordinary residences. We wouldn't be doing the construction work on the town ourselves. I was half afraid Brodhun would present me with a collection of concrete boxes and ask for praise. Instead, we would be employing more or less all of the construction firms in Wien in the hope of building up some semblance of local flavor.

The effort wasn't doing our budget any favors, but I figured we could just call it an economic stimulus. In theory, we could eventually make money from renting out facilities or selling the land, but I wasn't going to insult the intelligence of the Diet by pretending that sort of thing was likely. Fortunately, they had proven happy enough to vote to spend any amount of money if it was in the name of making Germania look good.

I had seen the whole village's layout sketched out on paper. Walking through it gave me another perspective and helped me feel reassured about our plan. This was an important part of the charm offensive we had planned for foreign journalists. Even if our stadiums were slapped together at the last second, even if our cuisine was still our cuisine, as long as they could at least travel to and from the game in a convenient and orderly fashion and find hospitable beerhalls along the way, the foreign press corps ought to be inclined to cut us some slack.

All of that efficient transportation was still in the planning phase, of course. For now, it was a good thing that Visha and I could fly. A quick burst of magic took the two of us to one end of Wien's ring road, the street that was said to house the city's most spectacular architecture.

My natural instinct was to treat this like a reconnaissance mission. Our objective was to examine our targets as quickly as possible. Before I could take more than a few steps, though, Visha latched onto my arm and slowed me from a forced march to a leisurely amble. I didn't try to resist. She was the one who would have to turn our plans into reality, so she should decide how long we spent examining each building. Besides, it was hardly unpleasant to stroll around the city with a beautiful woman on my arm.

It would have been more pleasant if I'd been reincarnated in my original body. Although, in that case Visha would not have been nearly so touchy-feely. Probably.

I glanced to the side, seeing her carefree smile. Visha had lived a sheltered life in the 203rd. Of course, as a capable aerial mage she was physically more than capable of defending herself. I still worried that she would open herself up to emotional harm. It had been some time since our last heart to heart, and she hadn't yet told me anything about her love target. With each day that went by, I was more worried that she had fallen for someone who would end up breaking her heart. She was an adult, though, so I was resolved to keep my nose out of her personal life.

Turning back to what I was supposed to be doing, Wien didn't lack for impressive buildings. The city had been a major center of power and commerce for centuries before Osterry had even joined the empire. That heritage had worked a sort of justified arrogance into the city's bones. By comparison, the capital Berun seemed like the home of a bunch of nouveau riche.

Fortunately, Visha and I had similar tastes. Out of all the varieties of buildings on display, we both kept gravitating towards the clean lines and simple beauty of the neoclassical style. I wasn't sure how well anybody would be able to duplicate the style in concrete, but that wouldn't be my problem. It would be up to Visha to find somebody willing to try. Worst come to worst, we could just claim we were creating a new style inspired by the classical examples.

Once we'd settled on the three buildings that would serve as the key examples of the look we wanted, it was time for lunch. Visha had picked out a cafe that was owned by ardent supporters of the Germanian Workers' Party. She had met them during the most recent political campaign, and spoke highly of the meals she had enjoyed there. It would have been more effective if I hadn't had the experience of watching Visha tear into a plateful of K-brot with a smile on her face. Suffice it to say, I didn't have high hopes for the local cuisine. I did give them high marks for service, though, when Visha and I were greeted at the door and immediately ushered upstairs into a private dining room.

I followed Visha's lead and ordered a second plate of what she was having. I was pleasantly surprised when the food was delivered. It wasn't boiled or steamed. Nothing was pickled. There wasn't even any sausage on my plate. No, it was a simple savory crepe, a mix of cheese, vegetables, and spices with just a bit of meat. I found it a little hard to believe that I could order such a thing without leaving the country.

Our conversation as we ate was light-hearted. We mostly spoke of practical matters. Scheduling our trips to the other three cities that would be hosting the World Cup. The logistics of editing and delivering films of the games to be shown in theaters. That sort of thing. When we had both finished eating, though, Visha set down her fork and gave me a serious look.

"Chancellor," she said, "I know about that."

I sat up straight. I could feel icy fingers dragging down my spine. I had been betrayed!

"Did Neumann tell you?"

I had replied without thinking, but even as I said it I realized that Neumann probably wasn't the culprit. I had paid him well for his silence. He was the kind of person who wouldn't hesitate to tattle, but once bought he usually stayed bought. A more likely culprit was Elya. I had been hoping the incident would pass beneath her notice, but as expected she was sensitive to the information flowing through the Imperial bureaucracy. I couldn't even blame her for sharing a bit of non-classified trivia with her friend.

The source of the information didn't matter, though, really. What was more important was that I put my own spin on what had happened before Visha could start teasing me about it.

"Well, anyway, it's expected that rigorous testing could result in destroyed equipment," I said, doing my best to adopt a more casual tone. "I'm sure the test pilots melted a few orbs along the way."

I had certainly destroyed plenty of orbs back when I was an official test pilot. If professional test pilots melted orbs from time to time, and I had melted a computation orb, then I must still have the skills of a test pilot. Logical fallacies were one of my strongest subjects.

"You melted your computation orb!" Visha said, her calm facade cracking and falling away.

The point was, that while melting a computation orb might be a beginner's mistake, if you looked at it in a larger context, it really wasn't that bad. Perhaps Visha had listened to too many of my political speeches to be taken in by a simple con like that.

"Yeah, yeah..." I said, waving a hand dismissively, before trailing off as I noticed the incongruity. "Wait, I thought you already knew?"

Visha looked down, her cheeks flushing slightly in embarrassment. After a moment, she had gathered herself and managed to look me proudly in the eye.

"You told me to say that when somebody was acting suspicious," she said.

I just stared at her. How had it come to this? I remembered giving advice to a young Lieutenant. Specifically, advice on what to do in order to rein in a shady boyfriend. I never would have expected her to take that advice and, against all reason, turn it back on me.

Visha reached out to take my hand in hers.

"You should be more careful. I," she said, then cleared her throat. "The whole country is relying on you."

We'd gone straight past friendly teasing and landed directly on sincere concern. That was bad. Instead of a friend ribbing somebody for missing an off ramp, this felt more like a family gathering to discuss whether grandpa should still be allowed behind the wheel.

I'd fought throughout the entire duration of the Great War, save for the year I spent in War College. In all that time, even as I led from the front in battle after battle, I was pretty sure that none of my subordinates had ever seriously considered the possibility that I might die. Not while I was awake and had a computation orb in hand, at least.

Now, after seven years of civilian life only briefly punctuated by the destruction of a Francois expeditionary corps, Visha was downright worried for my safety. Had she gone soft? Not likely, not when I recalled the looks on the faces of those cadets who had been put through her remedial training. Just how badly had I let myself go?

In the face of such a heartfelt appeal on such a serious matter, my only possible response was to deflect with humor.

"You aren't bored after being stuck in the same job for these years?"

Visha drew herself up as straight as she could without letting go of my hand. Her face flushed with confidence.

"Of course not," she said. "I want to be your deputy forever."

That was also troubling. She had noticed that the job of deputy chancellor was more appealing than the job of chancellor. Sure, the chancellor could boss you around, but the working hours were quite reasonable and the compensation was about the same. Most importantly, the world didn't see the deputy chancellor as the embodiment of the country's spirit, which meant that it offered a clear path to a safe and comfortable retirement.

On the other hand, people did change over time. Even if she was happy in the same job for three years, she might not be after ten. Everybody wanted to see their career progress move forward. In a sane world, I should lose an election well before that became relevant, but if Being X was going to keep sticking his nose into things, then I needed to stick with my own long term plans as well.

As for the matter at hand, I had already decided not to continue working as a test pilot. It was just pride that had me wanting to hide that fact from Visha. Now that she had caught me out, I was a big enough person to admit the truth.

"All right, all right. I'll restrain myself," I said. "I got stir crazy and went overboard. It won't happen again."

Rather than gloat, Visha looked thoughtful. "You could start making regular visits to the academy. I'm sure we could put our own aerial lacrosse team together."

"To play against the kids?" I asked.

A little friendly competition was just the kind of thing to keep active. Without any risk to life or limb, Weiss wouldn't have an excuse to keep putting things off. The only problem I could see was that the cadets didn't seem likely to do their best against opponents who outranked them.

"It'll be fun," Visha said, squeezing my hand for emphasis. "Besides, if it's just to get some exercise, does the level of competition really matter?"

That was a fair point. Even if our opponents weren't really trying to win, at least I'd have an excuse to be in the air. As long as I was reasonably graceful in victory, the cadets shouldn't bear too much resentment. They might even consider it a worthwhile trade in order to rub elbows with their superiors.

"I guess not," I said. I glanced to the side, and saw the woman who had welcomed us to the restaurant lurking in the doorway. "Ah, is it time for the check?"

Prompted by my question, the waitress came bustling into our room. Visha let go of my hand and put her hands behind her back, blushing slightly. I never really stood on my dignity as chancellor, but Visha had an odd sense of propriety sometimes. The waitress was beaming at her. It seemed the two of them had become friends during the election campaign.

Actually, pushing my memory further, calling this woman a waitress was selling her a bit short. She and her husband owned this place together. She was a few years older than Visha and not much taller than me. She had a full head of dark hair and a generous figure that perhaps carried an extra pound or two. When she turned to face me it was with a motherly smile.

"Don't be silly, dear. There's no charge for the two of you," she said. "I just wanted to see if you were interested in dessert."

"Hmmm," I said, torn. I did like free food. I also liked sweets. On the other hand, I didn't want to impose too much on Visha's friend.

"It's a strawberry filled crepe," she said, "topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream."

"All right," I said. If she was that intent on forcing desert on me, it would be rude to resist.

"Wonderful," she said. She glanced at Visha, receiving a nod, before taking a note on her pad. "Has everything been to your liking so far?"

"Yes, the food was excellent," I said. What was it you were supposed to say at fancy restaurants? Ah, yes. "My compliments to the chef."

Her face lit up. "Oh, Addie will be so glad to hear that! I'll go get him."

With that, she turned and hurried off down the stairs. Wait, was I supposed to compliment the chef to his face? I looked at Visha, confused. She seemed, if not happy, at least not alarmed. If I had to guess at her emotions, I'd say she looked resigned. Before I could press her for an explanation, the cafe owner returned.

She wasn't alone. A hefty figure came lumbering into the room behind her. If she could stand to lose a few pounds, he could stand to lose a few stone. I could acknowledge that the fat and happy chef was a valuable marketing tool, but at some point you ought to worry about your own health. His forehead was glistening with sweat just from rushing up the stairs. Despite that, he was standing bolt upright, brimming with pride. A veritable soldier on review.

"Chancellor," he said, "the meal lived up to your expectations?"

It was strange having somebody I'd never met before hanging on my every word. Still, there was no harm in being honest. It had been the best meal I'd enjoyed in quite a while, after all.

"Yes, it was quite good," I said. I took a closer look at the chef. Something about him struck me as familiar. "Have we met before?"

"I ran a message to the 203rd once, during the war," he said, then laughed, sending his belly shaking. "Of course, back then I could fit into a uniform."

His wife patted him on the shoulder. "You still had your mustache, too, dear."

I searched memory as best I could, but came up blank. I'd met an awful lot of soldiers during the war. He must have just had one of those faces. Rather than admit my failure, I decided to change the subject.

"Well, you've done quite well for yourself since the war," I said.

"The food here is terrific, and the decorations too," Visha added. "I especially like those paintings."

Our room had been fitted out with a tasteful set of decorations. The focal point of the outside wall was the window, of course, but the other three walls each featured a nicely framed painting. I was hardly an art critic, but they did look quite nice. Not something you'd necessarily see in a museum, but better than you could just buy off the street.

"Why, thank you," he said, puffing himself up. It was like watching somebody pump air into an already inflated beach ball. "I painted them myself, actually."

"Truly?" Visha asked.

"We met at an art exhibition, actually," his wife said, smiling. "Addy was going to study at the Wien Institute of Art."

"Once I married Ruth and had a family to support, though," he said, "I had to face the fact that my pastries sold better than my paintings."

He patted his belly to punctuate the remark. It seemed he didn't carry a grudge from having had to give up his dream career.

The capitalist system was a marvelous engine of prosperity, but it couldn't guarantee that every individual was always happy. Sometimes the things a person enjoyed doing and the things he could do to earn money didn't match up. It was a relief to see that, at least in this case, that mismatch hadn't created any lasting resentment. My one permanent policy goal as Chancellor, after all, was to make sure that the public didn't launch into a violent revolution that would threaten my own life.

Not that this guy was much of a threat to anybody, other than perhaps his wife if he were to roll on top of her in his sleep. As a matter of principle, though, I was always happy to meet a citizen who was content with his lot.

"Honestly, though," his wife said, "we owe much of our success to you, Chancellor."

"Me?" I asked. I certainly would have eaten here all the time if I had heard of this place earlier, but as far as I knew I'd never put a pfennig in their pockets.

"Before reunification, our business was drying up," she explained. "We would have been forced to shut down if things had continued as they were."

I'd known the Osterrian economy had been in a downturn, but it seemed I had underestimated its extent. If quality establishments like this one were nearly ready to go out of business, it certainly helped explain why their government had been so desperate to reunify.

"Or, at least, I would have had to ask my father in law for another loan," the chef added. "Avoiding such a fate was more than enough to earn my undying loyalty, even if I hadn't already joined the Germanian Workers' Party."

Judging by his tone of voice, he was speaking perhaps half in jest. It seemed our free meal was coming with a complimentary side of family drama.

"Now, dear, daddy did help us get this restaurant started," his wife said. She still sounded cheerful, but there was a definite warning note in her voice.

"A fine investment," he replied, "that was repaid with interest."

At this rate, the happy facade was going to drop soon. I really didn't want to sit through a full blown domestic argument. Unfortunately, using the Type 97 to escape would be rude. It would also mean abandoning my dessert.

I looked over to see that Visha looked equally uncomfortable. I gestured towards the couple with my head, urging her to try to derail the oncoming argument. Fortunately, she got the message.

"Ah, I forgot to thank you earlier," Visha said. "Giving the opening speech for our campaign rally in Wien was a big job. You did quite well."

Once again, I was forced to consider whether Being X had intervened in the last election. I had long realized, of course, that Visha had made mistakes during the campaign due to her naivete. Seeing them in detail, though, always made my head hurt. Just because he was her friend, she had rolled this fatty out to try to rile up a crowd of voters? It really made me doubt that my win had been on the level.

He was all smiles again, now that he was the object of praise. "If I succeeded, it was only thanks to the Chancellor. All of Osterry is eager to bring the Francois to heel!"

"Yes," his wife added. "Duisbuch was a good start! We're all excited to see what you have planned next."

Just as with national affairs, it seemed the secret to harmonious coexistence in the domestic sphere lay in shared hatred for the Francois Republic. It was frustrating, sometimes, to be in charge of a nation where even happy small business owners were cheering for a war of aggression. In the long run, the best way to secure peace would be to persuade ordinary citizens like these two that peaceful prosperity was worth more than any military victory. Until then, all that I could do was resolve myself to exercise the power of my office to restrain the nation's military yearnings

Our chef soon excused himself to head downstairs and tend to the melting chocolate. The dessert, when delivered, proved as decadent as promised. I'd definitely swing by Heidler's Cafe the next time I visited Wien. As I left, I made a mental note to check back and see if they could make anything suitable for consumption at the stadium. We did have that large extended food court area to fill up, after all. It would be a shame if the whole thing turned into nothing but a showcase for different varieties of sausage.

ooOoo

Time passed. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. All the while, I enjoyed the luxury of governing a country that, for once, wasn't facing any imminent disaster.

Visha and I had quickly selected the appearance of the other stadiums. In Berun, a few lovely buildings would serve as models of the art nouveau style to be applied to the stadium. The stadium in Hambrück would mimic the brick gothic of the major regional landmarks, while the stadium in München would ape the area's famous half-timbered buildings. Transforming those aspirations into concrete reality would be tough, but that's what subordinates were for. I resolutely stayed out of their work and let them handle the practical problems by themselves.

Her other suggestion, of regular aerial lacrosse games, proved to be a wonderful idea. We were able to field a team with Visha and myself as the forwards, Weiss in the midfield, and Neumann and Koenig as defenders. Teyanen played goalkeeper, backed up by Grantz when he was injured. The academy students, as I expected, refused to play seriously. I found that I didn't mind as much when it had been part of my expectation going in. I actually had to restrain Visha from running up the score in frustration. I was surprised that she cared so much about the integrity of the game. In the end, I managed to arrange things so that we always won by a reasonable but not excessive score of ten goals.

In order to reward the students for putting up with the hassle, we always stuck around for drinks afterward. I appreciated the chance to stay in touch with my old companions, as well as to get to know the young mages coming up through our new system. While I wouldn't be commanding them in battle, it still wouldn't hurt to have some first hand knowledge of the troops serving in the army that I would be relying on if everything went to hell.

Contrary to my expectations, though, nothing had gone wrong for several months. Our new prototypes of the heavy tank and modern fighter were able to get through demonstration exercises without crashing or burning, suggesting that they might enter service within the next couple cycles of equipment acquisition. In foreign affairs, the Allied Kingdom increased spending on its army, just as I had asked, though not by as much as I had hoped. They also ran into some problems negotiating basing rights with Pullska. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't asked to mediate, but I could understand that both sides had their pride to consider.

The Francois stopped expanding their army. Instead, President de Lugo committed to a complete overhaul of their equipment, planning to have a fully modern military within a year or two. I found his plans a bit alarming, but at worst it would bring their army to parity with ours. I also didn't think they'd be able to keep their gear up to date as time passed, reducing the long term threat that they posed. Really, the whole thing seemed to me to be a way to engage in economically useful deficit spending without admitting that the Francois approach to the Great Depression up to that point had been completely wrongheaded. Their economy was still in a shambles, of course, but men employed in arms factories or the army were less fertile ground for a revolution than men who were starving and unemployed.

In Ildoa, the northern forces were holding strong. They even launched a few strikes south of the Arno, although they had yet to make a serious effort to move the front lines as a whole. Any civil war was unpleasant, of course, but for now the Ildoans had at least settled down into a relatively constrained sort of conflict. I didn't love having a war zone at my border, but a war at such a low level was tolerable. For now, at least.

With two months left until the World Cup, the final list of participants was determined. The city of München would be hosting the Unified States, Albion, Aegyptus, and the Waldstätte Confederacy. Hambrück would feature matches between the Francois Republic, Czechoslovakia, Ispagna, and New Granada. The capital, Berun, would have the honor of hosting Germania, Hungary, Peru, and Dacia. Finally, Wien would play host to the teams from Platia, Brasilia, Lothiern, and the Legadonia Entente.

With the schedule set, the only thing left for me to do was to hope that the stadiums finished on time and no more wars broke out before the first kickoff. If I was really lucky, we could even make things look good on television.

ooOoo

 _AN2: I am aware that this chapter pushes the limits of the site rules for lewd content. I know not all readers will be comfortable with this. All I can say is that I'll go where my muse takes me. I hope the mods understand. Please remember that this is fiction. In real life, please make sure to practice safe hand-holding with a consenting partner._


	31. Chapter 31

ooOoo

 _April, 1940_

Charles Morrow looked out over the New Amstreldam skyline. The shining streetlights and illuminated skyscrapers certainly lived up to the reputation of the city that never slept. Central Park was a blob of darkness in the night. Morrow's apartment was up high enough that he couldn't make out even a hint of the bums in their ramshackle shanty town.

He knew his neighbors would be just as happy if the bums were also invisible in the light of day. Out of sight, out of mind, and for the folks still living high off the hog the only real problem with the Great Depression was the disgraceful increase in public vagrancy. Morrow could understand where they were coming from, though he had spent too much time living hand to mouth to really fall into that way of thinking. It gnawed at him, seeing so many decent people so far down on their luck.

He shook his head and stopped looking out the window. It didn't help to dwell on that kind of thing. He tossed in some cash whenever Father Murphy passed the hat around, and he made sure the men who served under him were doing all right. He couldn't do much more. The Great Depression was too big for one man to fight.

Looking down brought a more personal problem to his attention. His liquor collection, nestled in a small cabinet, was down to half a bottle of Kanatian whiskey and the dregs of a truly disgraceful fifth of gin. If he didn't do something soon, he was facing a real risk of involuntary teetotaling.

It was a pickle. Kanata wasn't that far away, but flying over the border under his own power would light up too many magic detectors for him to smooth things over with a handshake and a friendly conversation. He could try buying locally, but the boys he'd seen running the liquor trade lately had been a bit rougher than he wanted to rub elbows with. Considering his track record, that was really saying something.

In the end, that was a problem for the future. Morrow put his worries aside as he grabbed the bottle of whiskey and immersed himself in the simple joy of mixing a drink. He chopped up most of a lemon and tossed it into his cocktail shaker along with a handful of mint leaves. He added a spoonful of gum syrup and had just started muddling the mixture when he heard the radio come on from the neighboring room.

The first couple bars of a big band tune drifted through the air before it was replaced with the static between stations. Morrow smiled and shook his head. He should have known Madge wouldn't sit still for long.

He ignored the noise from the radio and poured a healthy nip of whiskey into the mix. After giving the whole thing a few shakes he fished the crushed ice out of his ice box and half filled a pair of glasses with ice. That done, he poured the mix out through the strainer, making sure an equal amount went into each glass. Finally, he tossed a sprig of mint on top of each glass and carried the fruits of his labor into the living room.

By the time he had finished, Madge had found something she liked on the radio and had settled back into her position on the couch. Charlie paused in the doorway for a moment to enjoy the view.

Margaret Caldwell was the grand dame of the New Amstreldam social scene. Her husband's tragic death two years earlier had barely put a dent into her social calendar. Her iron will and sometimes acerbic wit gave her a bit more substance than most of Charlie's flings, although he was honest enough to admit that he wouldn't have given her a second look if she didn't carry her age so well. At forty-five the slender brunette was still a handsome woman who looked better than a lot of gals who were half her age.

The two of them had been going steady for six months. The widow Caldwell had decided early on that shacking up with Morrow was just the kind of scandal that she needed to spice up her life. For his part, Charlie knew that his old commanding officers would have said prayers of thanksgiving if he had limited himself to just one woman, and a woman whose husband was safely dead at that. He couldn't even explain the change in his ways himself. Maybe he'd been chasing the wrong sort of dame during his misspent youth.

She smiled when she saw him standing there in the doorway. Morrow responded with a grin and stepped forward, handing her a drink. He took a seat next to her on the couch, only then recognizing the familiar voice coming over the radio. It was his buddy Frederick Rosenvelt, explaining his plan to fix the economy.

"Your friend sounds quite sure of himself," Madge said.

Freddy had gotten himself on the radio an awful lot. He didn't seem to mind that he hadn't yet been nominated on the Democratic ticket, let alone elected president. Morrow thought Freddy might be getting ahead of himself, but he was never one to run down people behind their back.

"He oughtta be, if he's gonna be president."

Madge let the comment slide, focusing her attention back on the radio. The interviewer had pushed Freddy on whether his plan would really work. In response, he'd begun talking about how the same thing had worked out great when Degurechaff tried it.

Madge gave a disdainful snort. "He sounds quite enamored of that woman."

"You don't like her?" Morrow asked, surprised. "I'd've thought you'd be a fan."

"Me? A fan of her?" Madge asked, almost hissing the last word.

"Sure," Morrow said. "A broad getting a chance to run a country... she's a real success story for you girls."

He knew for a fact that Madge thought she could've done a better job than the last few Presidents at keeping the Unified States going. He'd thought she would hold Degurechaff up as a shining star of a role model.

"Some success," she sniffed. "Where's her husband? Her children? Who's going to take care of her in her old age?"

Morrow raised an eyebrow, thinking back to the one live speech he'd managed to catch back when he'd been in Germania. Degurechaff'd had that whole crowd ready to run through artillery fire for her.

"She didn't strike me as the type that needs much taking care of."

"I suppose you're used to treating women like men," Madge said, shaking her head, "as their commanding officer."

"If they could fly the same and shoot the same, I never saw why I should treat them any different," Morrow replied, shrugging.

"That's all well and good for mages," she said, "but what about the ordinary women?"

Madge didn't have a lick of magic, and she had by all accounts run her husband's life pretty much from the day their honeymoon ended. Morrow had heard more than one wag suggest that the man had died young just so he could make his own decision about something for once. He had a feeling something was up, but he knew better than to interrupt Madge once she'd gotten this riled up.

"Do you know what Millicent said to me yesterday?" she continued.

Morrow shook his head. Milly was a real firecracker. The spitting image of her mother at twenty two, the two of them probably would have gotten along better if their personalities weren't so much alike.

"She told me she wants a career! A career!" Madge said. She took a healthy slug from her drink, hardly breaking stride. "I have a list of eligible bachelors as long as your arm lining up to meet her, and she wants a career!"

Morrow was fairly confident that Millie's interest in a career would fade away once that list of bachelors had been adjusted to her liking. He had also been in the army for long enough to know a hopeless battle when he saw one. He didn't respond with anything other than an agreeable hum.

"She wants to be a reporter, of all things," Madge continued. "She's going to Germania to write about that soccer tournament."

Maybe Millie was more serious about this than he had thought. "I didn't think her pin money would stretch quite that far."

Madge didn't begrudge her eldest daughter any sort of material possession, but she did make sure that any kind of serious purchase would require maternal approval. Morrow had enjoyed a ringside seat to a few of the ensuing negotiations, and he certainly didn't remember Madge agreeing to spring for any kind of international travel package.

"She's already signed on with the Observer and the Germanians are covering the travel costs," she said. "What am I supposed to do? That woman is paying for my baby to fly across the ocean to a country where women run for office and they sell booze right out in the street and-"

Morrow stretched out an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close for a comforting hug. "Hey, you've got me, right?"

She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. "You?"

"Sure, me. I know a guy over at the Observer. I can sign up as her photographer," he said. "That way, I can follow Milly around and keep her out of trouble."

"You'd do that for me?"

He took a moment to study the face of the teary-eyed mother in his arms. He spared a thought for the monumental task of riding herd on a girl fresh out of college who was exploring a new country for the first time. He wavered for a moment, before he remembered his barren liquor cabinet.

"Of course, doll. You know I hate seeing you cry."

He leaned in for a kiss, cutting off any more conversation. Charlie didn't play the white knight very often. If he was signing up for that kind of trouble, then he was definitely going to enjoy the favor of a fair lady first.

ooOoo

 _June 3, 1940_

Flying was not nearly as exciting as Millicent Caldwell had expected it to be. Sure, she'd felt some nervous anticipation when the dirigible had first started rising off the ground, but all that had followed was hour after hour of quiet forward progress. She was happy that they would be making the trip from New Amstreldam to München in only three days, of course, but she couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at the lack of adventure.

When she'd boarded the dirigible together with the national team and the international press corps she had harbored some hope of getting a story out of the trip itself, but nobody was going to buy a paper to read about a smooth journey. Even though she had known sky pirates weren't about to fly out of the pages of the pulps for any dramatic aerial duels, she was still disappointed that they hadn't at least run into a thunderstorm or two to spice things up.

The observation deck would have provided a wonderful view of the fury of nature being unleashed against the works of man. Instead, she was stuck with a peaceful view of the Germanian countryside that had gotten old several hours ago. She was alone in the room, nobody available to distract her from doodling in her notebook.

She had spent much of the trip alone. The athletes and the other reporters had been friendly enough, at first. Perhaps a little too friendly. Once her Uncle Charlie made the rounds, though, none of the men dared to exchange more than a few words with her.

Milly sighed, closed her notebook, and stood. The view wouldn't be as good from the dining room, but at least she could help herself to a snack.

The plush feel of the carpet under her feet as she made her way down the hall put her in mind of the extravagant hotels that her mother preferred as seasonal residences. The Germanians certainly hadn't skimped on any creature comforts. Her own cabin was so lavishly decorated that it almost felt as if she had moved back in with her mother, and the rest of the ship was decked out to match. Each little piece of thoughtful opulence spoke of the high hopes the country held for the World Cup.

She arrived at the dining room to find some pleasant company awaiting her, as well as the snack she had been anticipating. Anna, the woman sent by the World Cup Committee to act as their guide, was seated alone at a dining table, working her way through a stack of papers. Milly snagged a roll from the basket placed near the entrance and headed over.

Milly had hesitated to approach Anna at first. The blonde was pretty in an intimidating sort of way. She carried herself with confidence and ordered men around like she expected them to obey, and for the most part they did. Milly had been fascinated by Germania ever since they elected a woman to run the country, but it was one thing to read about social equality and quite another to see it play out right in front of her.

If the men on the ship hadn't been avoiding Milly like the plague, she never would have mustered up the courage to approach the other woman. Fortunately, Anna's chilly exterior had turned out merely to be a cover for her warm heart. She was a charming conversationalist, happy to share advice whether it had to do with finding her way around München or managing a professional career as a single woman. Without her, Milly would have found the flight completely unbearable.

"Mind if I join you?" Milly asked. Anna had volunteered early on to help Milly bring her conversational Germanian up to snuff. Two years of instruction on the language at Barnard hadn't quite brought her to full fluency.

"Not at all. I'm almost finished," Anna said, her own Albish as perfect as always.

It seemed she had been working to assemble loose papers into packets that were then tucked into oversized envelopes. Just as she said, the table was largely covered with stacks of filled envelopes, with few loose papers to be seen.

"What are you working on?" Milly asked.

Anna looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, tapping her chin with her finger, before she shrugged. "I suppose it's fine to give you a head start."

She fished an envelope out of one of the piles and handed it over. Milly saw her name written on the outside and prised the envelope open, eager to see what was inside. The first thing that fell out was a leather billfold. She opened it up to find her own face looking back at her. Her picture had been printed onto a thick cardboard tag that was labeled "PRESS" in both Albish and Germanian. A complicated filigree pattern seemed to vouch for the press pass's authenticity.

Setting the billfold aside, Milly kept digging through the envelope. She found maps, both of München and its surroundings and of the country as a whole. There was also a list of local attractions, keyed to the map. Finally, there was a document that spelled out the privileges associated with her press pass.

Milly could feel her eyebrows rise as she worked her way down the list. She'd known that the Germanians were rolling out the red carpet, but this was really something else. Not only did her press pass entitle her to access the press box at every game in the World Cup, not only was her hotel stay covered by the Germanian government, but the press pass would also function as a train ticket for every rail line in Germania. It would also entitle her to half price drinks in any city that was hosting a World Cup game, and even allowed free access to the motor pool provided for foreign correspondents.

She looked up to find Anna looking amused, but didn't let it slow her down. Her excitement had her resorting to her native tongue. "There's a motor pool?"

"The trains are better for most things," Anna said, nodding, "but we thought some of you might like to explore the countryside."

"But you can drive between cities, too, right?" Milly asked. "On those new highways?"

This was it! This was her angle! Milly could feel her mind going a mile a minute. She hadn't been able to develop any sources on the national team, so why bother staying in the same city? People back home were hungry for news about the "Germanian miracle." She could give it to them by driving from town to town, interviewing the folks she met along the way. She could-

Actually, she'd have to talk her Uncle Charlie into driving the whole way. That could be tough. He'd made it clear that he saw this whole trip as a relaxing vacation. He'd also seemed to hit it off with some of the other men during the flight to München. Prying him away from the gang could be tough.

"Yes, of course," Anna said, before raising an eyebrow as she saw Milly's shoulders droop. "Ah, do you know how to drive?"

Milly shook her head.

"Would you like to learn?" Anna asked. "I'm sure I can find the time to teach you once we land."

Milly only hesitated for an instant. Her mother had always sworn up and down that driving was unladylike. On the other hand, her mother was an ocean away.

She could feel the grin spreading across her face. "That'd be swell."

ooOoo

 _June 5, 1940_

The small cafe on the Aerial Mage Academy campus had long since become the traditional gathering place for post-game debriefings. Besides the convenient location, it offered excellent coffee and a surprisingly wide array of chocolate desserts. Perhaps not so surprising, considering that the cafe played host to the chancellor once a week.

Viktoriya Serebryakov had secured a seat at a side table where she could enjoy her coffee and dessert along with a convenient view of the corner booth where the chancellor was holding court. Tanya was engaged in an animated discussion with the six cadets who had made up the opposing team. She attempted to diagram out what she was explaining using tableware for a moment before shoving everything to the side and using an illusion to replicate the field of play from earlier.

The cadets were hanging on her every word. Just like everybody always did.

Visha sighed and looked down at the table. Stirring her coffee, she occupied herself watching the patterns formed as the cream mixed in with the rest of the drink. She was brought out of her thoughts when a blonde force of nature invaded her table. Unfortunately, not the one she would have preferred.

"What's wrong?" Elya asked, staring at her with genuine concern. "I haven't seen you look so mopey in months. Did one of the stadiums fall down?"

Elya had invited herself along for the day's activities because they were going to be playing against the cadet class that had won the right to represent Germania in the upcoming exhibition games. In the end it hadn't made much difference as the veterans of the 203rd had cruised to their usual ten goal victory, but Elya seemed to enjoy the show. It was only natural that she would invite herself along to the party afterwards.

"No," Visha replied, not in the mood to play along with her friend.

The stadiums were quite solidly built. The whole World Cup project was on solid footing, after Visha had poured her heart and soul into it for the last few months. Supervising so many people and coordinating so many moving pieces had been the most challenging thing she had ever done. Convincing the country to vote for Tanya couldn't even compare. She had hoped that once she completed the project she would receive some special recognition from the chancellor. Instead, Tanya seemed to have taken it for granted that she would succeed.

The worst part was that she couldn't even be mad about what was, in the end, a show of trust.

"Did you two have a fight?" Elya asked, though her tone suggested that she could hardly imagine that such a thing could actually happen.

"No," Visha said again, kicking at the table leg in frustration. She cocked her head, then reached into her magical senses to detect the hum of a privacy spell that would prevent their conversation from being overheard. As expected of Elya. Visha sighed. She might as well confide in her friend. "It's just, sometimes everything is so wonderful, but sometimes it's like we're nothing more than friends."

Elya studied her face for a moment before leaning back and taking a sip of her coffee. "Ah, I forgot that you're still so innocent."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Elya said, her expression softening into a nostalgic smile, "a seduction has a sort of rhythm to it."

Visha almost choked on her drink. "What?"

"The uncertainty is part of the fun," Elya continued. "Otherwise you might get bored."

"Are you saying that the chancellor is some sort of, of," Visha said, stumbling over her words, "seductress?"

Visha had been following Tanya Degurechaff for well over a decade. After all those years, while she had certainly wondered at times if the other woman understood the idea of romantic love, she had never had any reason to doubt her chastity.

"She's toyed with the emotions of every crowd she's ever stood in front of," Elya said, giving her a flat look. "You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody with a better understanding of the human heart."

"What should I do, then?" Visha asked. "What would you do?"

"Well, normally I'm the one doing the seducing," Elya said, rubbing her chin in thought, "so unless you want to take a more direct approach…"

Visha did her best to hide behind her coffee, and cursed the fair complexion that made her visible blush answer enough to Elya's question.

"Then I suggest you just relax and enjoy the ride," Elya said, waggling her eyebrows as if there were any chance Visha could have missed the double entendre.

This time, Visha did choke on her coffee. Even as she scrambled to grab a napkin and clean up the table, though, she could feel a weight falling off her shoulders that she hadn't even realized was there.

ooOoo

 _June 7, 1940_

Commander Ian Flemons, together with his superior officer Admiral Godby and three of the girls from the office, strode into the Royal Oak on a mission. An actual, government-sanctioned, paid mission, not just the sort of activities that usually ensued when men visited a pub.

It had caused quite a commotion in some quarters of the Allied Kingdom when they learned that Chancellor Degurechaff planned to appear personally to introduce the inaugural game of the World Cup between the Allied Kingdom and the Unified States of America. Flemons thought it was a bit overblown. He'd met the woman, and she had all of the warmth and human kindness of a viper. Letting the public get to know her could only be a good thing, in his opinion.

The higher ups were not so sanguine. In the end, though, they decided that it was safe enough to allow her to give a brief speech to the Albish people. She was, after all, the head of a state with which they had somewhat cordial relations, and in the context of a sporting event there was really little damage that she could do. Still, out of an abundance of caution, it was decided that His Majesty's intelligence services should keep careful watch for any sort of trickery by the Germanian chancellor.

A pair of unfortunate analysts had been tasked to stay in the office and watch the speech closely on a television requisitioned by the Office of Naval Intelligence. Not only that, they were to record the whole thing on their own computation orbs. Flemons, on the other hand, had zeroed in on the fact that Degurechaff had gone to great lengths to put her televisions in eating and drinking establishments throughout the country. Therefore, in order to understand what she was planning, one had to observe her speech in its natural environment, so to speak.

The fact that he would be able to charge his food and drink to the government's account was, of course, a happy coincidence.

The first thing he noticed after they entered the Royal Oak was how smoothly the television had been incorporated into the bar. The Royal Oak had always boasted two tiers of seating, allowing the television to be positioned so it could be seen reasonably well by almost everybody in the bar. It wasn't quite as efficient as the Germanians had it in their mathematically laid out television parlors, but it wasn't nearly as awkward as he'd feared.

Their party, of course, claimed one of the reserved tables that was quite close to the television. In order to do their vital work for His Majesty's government they would need an unobstructed view.

They had hardly taken their seats before their waitress appeared, ready to take their order. Rosie was a charming young brunette who ran a laundry business on the side and had a cute little mole on her lower back. Flemons greeted her with a smile and put in an order for the shepherd's pie. Godby ordered a round of pints for the table and a Welsh rarebit for himself, while the girls decided to split two orders of fish and chips between themselves.

"I must say," Godby said, once Rosie had bustled off to put in their orders, "this is a very civilized method for watching a football game."

Flemons couldn't help but agree. The last time his mates from school had dragged him out to see a game, he'd been crammed into a standing room only section with hundreds of strangers and forced to stand in the wind and rain for hours. By contrast, sitting in the comfortable warmth of the pub and enjoying a decent meal while the game played out on screen was positively decadent.

The food soon arrived and the group of them engaged in a pleasant bout of small talk. They all kept one eye on the television, though, and once the test pattern transformed into a Germanian flag, they all turned their attention to the screen. A jaunty marching tune began to play, gradually silencing the rest of the pub goers. The barkeep was quick enough to hop out and turn up the volume so that by the end of the song it could be heard clearly throughout the room.

As the last strains of the song died out, the view on screen switched over to a very plain room with a very plain desk behind which sat a blonde whom Flemons would very much like to get to know. She glanced down at the papers in front of her before looking up at the camera with a bright smile.

"It's my honor to introduce your hostess for the evening, the chancellor of Germania, Tanya von Degurechaff!"

The display changed once again. This time, instead of the nearly empty television studio, the camera was focused on what was clearly a working office. Degurechaff sat behind an imposing desk of solid oak, covered with the usual detritus of office work. Behind her to the right of the screen was an overflowing bookshelf, while to the left of the screen stood another woman.

Unless Flemons very much missed his guess, she was Deputy Chancellor Viktoriya Serebryakov. She had been Degurechaff's adjutant since the early days, and was known as an effective operator behind the scenes. He'd never heard that she was much of a public speaker, though.

"Thank you. It's my pleasure to host this second edition of the World Cup," Degurechaff said.

Her Albish was, as usual, almost completely free of the usual Germanian accent. That's not to say there was no foreign accent at all. There was something exotic about her, though Flemons couldn't quite put his finger on the source. The linguistic specialists back at the office had wasted many hours if not days trying to pin down her accent. At least one fist fight that he knew of had been the result, but no firm conclusion had ever been drawn.

In any event, Degurechaff sounded completely unphased by being on television. She seemed perfectly at home in front of the camera.

"With me today is my deputy chancellor," Degurechaff continued, "Viktoriya Serebryakov."

Serebryakov, by contrast, was practically vibrating in excitement. She began waving to the camera as soon as her name was mentioned. Degurechaff waited a beat, then turned back to see what was going on.

"Say hello to the people, Visha."

Serebryakov jumped in surprise and stopped waving. "Ah! Hello to the people!"

Not a public speaker, indeed. Flemons smiled and shook his head. On screen, Degurechaff smiled fondly and shook her head. He felt a jolt of ice down his spine at the idea of empathizing with Degurechaff and took a heavy pull from his beer to steady himself. In the mean time, Degurechaff had collected herself and was once again addressing the camera.

"Visha took charge of the committee responsible for preparing for the World Cup. You wouldn't be watching this broadcast if not for her hard work," Degurechaff said. Behind her, Serebryakov stood tall at the praise. "So remember, if you have any problems with the broadcast, please direct your complaints to the office of the deputy chancellor."

Serebryakov's shoulders slumped. Degurechaff ignored what was going on behind her and rose to her feet.

"Now, rather than the two of us," she said, spreading her arms wide, "it's more important for me to introduce the city of München, the site of today's game."

All of a sudden, the office disappeared. The camera hadn't changed, as the two women were in the exact same place, but now it was clear that they were floating in the air, thousands of feet above the city.

Flemons sat up straight and stared at the screen. He'd known that Degurechaff was capable of that level of illusion, but to coordinate seamlessly with another person was a different animal altogether. Even as Serebryakov had looked every bit the hyperactive ball of nerves, nothing she had done had suggested that she wasn't standing firmly on the ground. He had a feeling he would be reviewing the recording of this act more than a few times.

"Conveniently located at a crossroads of trade, the city of München has been offering a warm welcome to guests for hundreds of years," Degurechaff continued. "This is a place where you can enjoy any meal that you like, as long as it's sausage."

"Ah, actually," Serebryakov said, raising her hand like a schoolgirl, "you can order sausage on a roll and have them hold the sausage."

"Yes, of course," Degurechaff said, with a wry smile, "the vegetarian plate."

Flemons took another heavy pull from his pint. He'd met quite a few Germanians when he was stationed on the continent after the war. Perhaps one or two of them was capable of decent comic timing. But he had never, not once, run into a Germanian capable of self-deprecating wit. Up until a moment ago, he would have said that such a thing was antithetical to the national character.

He watched without paying much mind as Degurechaff continued to extoll the virtues of the city of München before leading Serebryakov in a fine bit of formation flying down to rooftop level and then to the stadium. He was finally brought out of his funk by an elbow in his side. He turned to find himself meeting the bright eyes of Claire Blanchet.

"Is that the Devil of the Rhine you're always talking about?" she asked, a smile on her face. "She's cute as a button."

All he could do was nod and reach for his pint glass. Finding it empty, he flagged down Rosie as quickly as he could for another round. All the while, the line that had stuck in his mind since his schoolboy days kept running through his head.

 _The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist._

ooOoo


	32. Chapter 32

_AN: I've started adding dates to clarify when things are happening. I usually try to do that just in the text, but there seems to have been some ongoing confusion._

ooOoo

 _June 7, 1940_

I had pursued the ideal of the perfect World Cup despite the great expense because of one vision that had sustained me throughout the process. That on the first day of the tournament the Francois representative, through gritted teeth and despite his obvious reluctance, would be forced to admit that he couldn't find anything to complain about. Sometimes, in my dreams, he even cried.

Reality, as usual, didn't live up to my expectations.

" _C'est magnifique!_ What a wonderful event!"

Monsieur Beauregard, the Francois ambassador, had been effusive in his praise for the beauty of our new stadiums from the moment that he saw them. Now that the World Cup was upon us, he was full of praise for the pageantry of the opening ceremony, the enthusiasm of the crowd, and even the food on offer at the stadium. The worst part was that, as far as I could tell, he was being completely sincere.

"You're too kind," I said, mustering up my best professional smile.

"And this suite! To be among the crowd, to watch the game, and yet also to be able to carry on a decent conversation," he said, before kissing his own fingers for some reason. "Wonderful."

In all honesty, the suite was impressive. Visha had gone a little overboard with the design of the chancellor's suite, but I couldn't argue with the results. The room was broader than the other private suites and extended deeper into the building. As a result, we were able to host over thirty movers and shakers without having to worry much at all about elbow room.

At the rear of the room, away from the field, there was a connection to a private kitchen. Visha had arranged for a buffet table to be set up near that wall with a constantly replenished array of finger foods. The game could be seen from just about anywhere within the suite, but for those dedicated to catching every piece of the action there were two rows of seating at the front of the room. A bar with associated bar stools was at the same level as the rest of the room, while a step down led to a row of seating that was almost flush up against the glass separating us from the action.

The twin attractions of the food and the game action ensured a steady flow of guests circulating around the room. As did the waiters, circulating with a broad variety of drinks. My own spot near the center of the room acted as another focus of attention, especially for the more blatant brown nosers.

I maintained my uncomfortable smile and looked to the side. Fortunately, the woman I was looking for was nearby. I reached out and tugged Visha over to stand next to me.

"Ambassador, please allow me to introduce my deputy chancellor, Viktoriya Serebryakova," I said. "It's thanks to her hard work that this whole event has come together so well."

If I ever wanted Visha to take over as chancellor, I was going to have to raise her profile, both inside and outside of the country. Letting her ad lib on television had been a calculated risk, but I thought her charm points had come through in the end. Judging by her current deer-in-headlights expression, getting her used to dealing with big shots was going to be a long term project.

"Ah, hello," Visha said, reaching out her hand.

"Mademoiselle," Beauregard said, taking her hand before smoothly bending over brushing his lips against her skin. "You must be as capable as you are beautiful."

I waited for her to brush him off, but Visha seemed to have frozen in place. Beauregard had straightened up, though he kept her hand clasped in his. The pause had started to become awkward, but Visha still didn't say anything.

I finally resorted to pantomiming that I had just seen somebody across the room. "Pardon me, ambassador, I need to borrow Visha for a moment."

I wrapped my arm around hers and dragged Visha off towards the more sparsely populated front of the room. This early in the match, it seemed the food was more of a draw than the entertainment. Fortunately, whatever had caused Visha to freeze up didn't have hold of her legs, so she was able to follow along beside me gracefully enough. I stopped near the wall, in a little bubble of privacy. Turning to the side, I saw that Elya had read the mood and was directing traffic away from us for the moment.

"Are you all right?" I asked, leaning in close so that we wouldn't be overheard.

"Sorry," she said, looking down, "he just startled me, is all."

Naturally, after reincarnating into the past as a young girl, I was aware that I lived in a society with rather old-fashioned ideas about women. There was equality in terms of who was allowed to pick up a rifle and shoot at the emperor's enemies, but women were still expected to tolerate a lot of behavior that would have merited a report to HR in my previous life.

I'd been able to avoid that kind of nonsense by being promoted to major and having over fifty confirmed kills before my thirteenth birthday. I'd also had a whole lifetime's worth of memories that allowed me to resist the social pressure that otherwise might have molded my behavior. Visha, on the other hand, while an accomplished mage, was also far too kind. Even if she could have easily delivered the broken bones that would have convinced lecherous men to keep their hands to themselves, she would never do so on her own initiative.

Fortunately, she had a friend like me. I wanted Visha to learn how to move confidently through any kind of social circles. I didn't intend to open her up to a campaign of harassment. If men felt comfortable carrying out such blatantly unwarranted hand-holding right in front of me, I hated to think of what she might feel forced to endure when I wasn't around.

"There's no need to let him touch you like that," I said, patting her on the shoulder in sympathy. "He's just an ambassador. The Francois Republic could replace him easily enough."

They might think us prudish if we kicked an ambassador out over sexual harassment, but that would be a small price to pay in order to teach anybody watching that Visha was off limits.

"I don't mind," Visha said, shaking her head. "He's just being friendly."

As I'd feared, she was far too kind. She had always been enthusiastic in destroying the enemies of the Empire, but she refused to devote the same sort of effort fighting for her own cause

"Well, I mind when some lothario thinks he can put his paws on you just because he's friendly!" I said. "My deputy chancellor's person is sacrosanct."

The only way Visha would stand up for herself was if she was doing it on behalf of someone else. I felt a little guilty about being so manipulative, but I didn't have any other choice. Fortunately, Visha seemed to sense my kind intentions.

"All right," she said, favoring me with a smile. "I understand."

"Good," I said, before I tugged her back into the center of the room. "Let's take a look at the game."

We were able to find a clear area in front of the bar that offered an unobstructed view. Since the chancellor's suite was, of course, at midfield, we could see the whole field clearly. Somewhat to my surprise, the sight before us was not the Albish team easily pushing the Americans around. A glance at the scoreboard confirmed my suspicion that nobody had even scored a goal yet.

I had scheduled this game first for two reasons. First, it allowed us to show off our television technology to two large countries that shared the same language at the same time. Second, the strength of the Albish team was one of the biggest draws for the tournament as a whole. Together, it meant that we should have decent television viewership and an enthusiastic crowd. I hadn't really expected the Americans to make it a close game.

Well, it was early. Football wasn't exactly a high scoring game to begin with. And yet, studying the field, I didn't see any obvious mismatches. If anything, the American team seemed more energetic. As I watched, the Albish team brought the ball across midfield before their player tried a lateral pass. He either mis-hit it or mis-judged the situation, as an American player came flying forward and stole the ball without breaking stride.

"Bloody hell!"

The familiar voice and unfamiliar emotion threw me for a moment. I brought my attention back to the suite to find Mr. Lloyd and his two attendants standing below us, their noses almost pressed to the glass. Mr. Lloyd had made a very brief appearance near the buffet earlier in the evening, but it seemed he was putting the game ahead of his diplomatic duties for the moment.

I looked back up and watched the play develop, complete with Mr. Lloyd's commentary.

"How can you bring that slop to an international competition? Get back! Get back! This is your fault, help fix it! No! Watch the pass! The pass! No-"

Just as Mr. Lloyd had feared, the American who had stolen the ball had charged forward and drawn the attention of the entire Albish defense. As the goalie and both defenders closed in on him, he slid the ball across the field. His teammate had run up to support him and was completely unmarked. It was an easy tap in goal, bringing a roar from the crowd that temporarily drowned out Mr. Lloyd's ongoing complaints.

I didn't think the crowd was particularly partial one way or the other. Mostly they were cheering for the excitement of a goal being scored. Perhaps there was a little bit of an inclination to cheer for the underdog, but they probably would have cheered just as loudly if Albion had just scored. That would be cold comfort for Mr. Lloyd, of course.

I maneuvered Visha until we were out of earshot of the Albish group before I asked the question that was bothering me. "Isn't Albion's team better than this?"

"They should be," Visha said, before chewing on her lip. "Well, there was that report from Elya."

"Oh?"

"A group of Albish players went out after curfew," she said, glancing around to make sure she wouldn't be overheard. "They came back late, and drunk."

Apparently there was at least one disadvantage that came along with having train service that conveniently connected the stadium village to the heart of München. I cocked my head in thought. "We just let them go?"

"We put a few guards in place to make sure the players were safe," Visha said, shrugging. "It's not a prison camp."

Fair enough. I kept the pair of us moving until we were on the opposite side of the suite from Mr. Lloyd's group, then grabbed a couple of the seats on the lower level. Visha and I had worked hard to prepare this event. There was no major diplomatic crisis that I needed to worry about for the moment. We could afford to take some time to enjoy what looked to be a surprisingly competitive game.

ooOoo

 _June 14, 1940_

The Americans ended up charging out to a four to one lead at halftime, then weathering the Albish counterattack in the second half to hold on for a five to four victory. The unexpected result sent shock waves through the sporting world, or at least the Albish press. The anger and vitriol directed towards the national team's coaches reached the sort of level I usually associated with the articles about me.

As far as I could tell, nobody ever wrote even a single article thanking me for establishing the group stage instead of going straight to single elimination matches, as the original plan would have done. Not that I ever expected gratitude from the Albish, but I had after all saved their team from going straight home in humiliation, however inadvertently. Well, I could just add it to the list of unappreciated kindnesses I had done for others.

In the second round of group stage matches held on Wednesday and Thursday, Albion's team quieted some of their critics by crushing the Aegyptus squad, seven to one. However, the Unified States managed to scrape a win against the Waldstatte Confederacy, one to nothing. As the Confederacy had won their match against Aegyptus, this meant that the Unified States had already clinched the victory in their group, while Albion still needed at least a draw in their upcoming game in order to go through to the elimination rounds.

Germania had also secured its spot in the elimination rounds by edging out Peru in a high scoring game before treating the Dacian football team much as I had treated their army during the Great War. The match against Hungary would determine whether we finished in first or second place. The first place teams would have the privilege of starting the elimination rounds in the same city in which they played their group stage games, while the second place finishers rotated among the competition sites.

I was reviewing those happy sporting facts in my head in order to distract myself from the trepidation that I felt as Maximilian Ugar hemmed and hawed and refused to come to the point. The man had asked for an emergency meeting, rarely a good sign. I also couldn't think of many happy surprises that could come out of a nuclear research program.

"General Ugar," I finally said, interrupting his small talk, "while I'm happy for your daughter, I can't imagine that you asked for this meeting in order to discuss her performance at school."

"Ah, yes," he said, before he came to attention, almost as if bracing himself to take a blow. "We recently succeeded in creating a man made nuclear chain reaction. We have also verified that the magical shielding developed to protect against radiation is effective against higher exposure than previously believed."

Well, there were two sentences I never wanted to hear one after the other. I held back a sigh. "What happened, exactly?"

He seemed relieved at my relatively mild reaction. "Our scientists believed that a sustainable reaction could be created by use of uranium and heavy water. The result was more energetic than anticipated. Fortunately, the mages were able to shield observers from both the super heated steam and the radiation."

He paused for a moment, looking at me. I gestured for him to continue. Better to get it all out at once.

"The remaining solid materials melted through two of the three layers of containment and halfway through the outer concrete vessel before cooling into a stable mass."

That was just about as horrifying as I had feared it would be. I almost wanted to ask if Dr. Schugel had been seen in the area before the test.

"If not for those mages," I said, "you'd be here telling me that all of our scientists were dead?"

"Well, I wouldn't be here," he began, before stopping and clearing his throat when I glared at him. "Um, yes, essentially. We're all very grateful for your foresight."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Why did none of our nation's scientists have a functioning survival instinct? Sometimes I felt like the only sane person in the country.

"What do you plan to do now?"

He visibly brightened. "Well, we'd like to get some more heavy water from Legadonia. Besides that, there's some interesting work to be done analyzing the remains of the last experiment."

With the thawing of our relations with the Legadonia Entente, cross border trade had started to pick up. One small portion of that, which I hoped the rest of the world had overlooked, had been the purchase by the University of Berun of small batches of heavy water from Legadonia for experimental purposes. That small trickle, combined with the small trickle of our locally generated heavy water, had been stockpiled until we had enough for the most recent experiment. Now that most of it was radioactive steam dissipating over the Germanian countryside, we naturally would need more in order for the next round of experiments.

Of course, a sudden gigantic purchase of heavy water would no doubt raise eyebrows around the world. I was also concerned that the scientific response to a life-threatening disaster was to try to replicate it as soon as possible. Not disappointed, not surprised, but concerned.

I stood, fixing General Ugar with my best glare.

"I expected better from you, General," I said. "The top priorities on this project are safety and secrecy. The scientists can lose track of that, but not you. Never you."

He nodded, shoulders slumping.

"The heavy water purchases will continue as they have been. You will go back to the project and create a report describing what went wrong and how it can be avoided in the future," I said. I paused to look him up and down. "After that, we'll see."

He nodded again, then saluted and left the room after I waved a hand in dismissal.

Once he left, I sank back into my seat with a sigh. The Max Ugar that I knew was a calm, level-headed individual. I was counting on him to be the voice of sanity on my behalf. I hoped that he had just gotten swept along by the enthusiasm of the scientists and the desire for quick results. If he could get his head on straight, he would be a valuable asset to the country. Otherwise, I'd need to have a replacement ready to go. I could hardly allow our nuclear program to carry on without a steady hand at the rudder.

I had lost enough nights of sleep worrying about leaving my successor with a nuclear monopoly. I hadn't even considered the disasters that might happen along the way. It was enough to make me want to cancel the program altogether. Unfortunately, as disturbing as it was to consider what our mad scientists were doing with our uranium stockpile, it would be even worse if other countries had nukes and we didn't. I'd just have to do my best to guide the program in the right direction.

If all went well, I could retire in a rational world of mutually assured destruction.

ooOoo

 _June 14, 1940_

Later that afternoon, Elya came into my office with a pile of press clippings. I greeted her with a smile. While I hardly considered myself an expert in public relations, at least for this little project my future knowledge had some practical use. To be fair, it was probably present day knowledge over in America, but the Empire had been notoriously maladroit in its dealings with the media. Compared to the Imperial days, I was confident that our efforts looked like some expert had come back in time and pitched in.

"How's it going?" I asked.

Eventually, I wanted to establish a system of access journalism. By doling out perks to journalists, both in the form of access to newsworthy information and direct bribes, we could then shape what they published by threatening to take those perks away. By keeping our threats vague and somewhat arbitrary, we could train journalists to avoid even the possibility of making us upset. A beautiful web of self-censorship would stretch around the world, protecting our interests and serving our needs.

Of course, we were still in the early days of the process. For now, we were mostly just paying journalists in the hopes that they would say nice things about us. We had laid out the quid, so to speak, with no means of enforcing the pro quo. We had taken a few baby steps in that direction. Players and coaches in the World Cup had mandatory press availability times, access to which was controlled by the World Cup Committee and therefore by the government. We just hadn't done anything with that power so far.

It was just about time that we yanked somebody's access in order to serve as an example to the others.

"Oh, it's wonderful!" Elya said. "Everybody is writing such nice things."

Elya was an eternal optimist. It was part of what made her such a joy to be around and contributed to her effectiveness as an employee. It also meant, however, that I had to take her top level evaluations with a grain of salt, especially when she was happy.

"Everybody?"

"Well," she allowed, "two of the gentlemen from Hungary haven't sobered up enough to write anything coherent enough for publication."

If the worst thing to come out of this was some wasted beer money, then things really were going well.

"What about the articles that have been published? Give me the highlights."

"Most of them have focused on the games, though they usually praise our stadiums. Oh, here!" she said, sliding a few clippings out of the pile. "Three different American papers ran feature stories comparing our rapid creation of the stadium villages to their rapid proliferation of shanty towns. Hoopervilles, I think they call them."

I whistled. What a brutal attack. Superficially compelling, emotionally riveting, and completely unfair. Our stadium villages had been built through great efforts by the government, while their Hoopervilles had been thrown up by homeless bums at the end of their ropes. Not that the average reader would see through it, not when they were looking at pictures side by side for comparison.

Americans really didn't pull any punches when they went after each other. I wasn't going to wade into that fight, though. I was no crusader for truth or full disclosure. I'd just be content that they were saying nice things about Germania for now.

"The biggest story has been Miss Caldwell's series, Roads of Germania," Elya continued. Seeing my look of confusion, she clarified. "She's the one who has been touring the country in a borrowed People's Car."

"That poor girl," I said. Her editors must have insisted on it as a publicity stunt. American newspapers would stuff people into a phone booth until it broke if they could sell papers with the picture they got out of it.

"Actually, she seems to be enjoying herself," Elya said. "She loves the People's Car, and she's praised just about every place she's visited. She was particularly impressed with the televisions that you had seeded around the country."

That was suspicious. I didn't see how anybody could travel for long distances in the People's Car and end the journey in a good mood.

"The New Amstreldam Observer had to do an extra print run, since her first story was so popular," Elya continued. "Since then, the new installments have been nationally syndicated."

I tapped my fingers on my desk, lost in thought. There was no way that heartfelt praise of Germania was getting printed across the Unified States. Besides the laughable idea of an American praising our under powered little bug, a modern American woman driving through our countryside would find it, at best, quaint.

Elya's blind optimism was most pronounced when it came to me, or to projects that I had a hand in. It was probably one of the factors that kept her from seeking out a more lucrative job in the private sector, but it also meant that she could hardly fathom the idea that somebody wouldn't be impressed by something I had done, let alone that they would make fun of me. She would read an article subtly lampooning our cheap cars and our rustic citizens and their fascination with a tiny little television, and come away thinking it was sincere praise. Fortunately, I didn't let her obvious hero-worship of me go to my head, so I was able to prepare a rational response.

It was tempting to yank Miss Caldwell's press credentials and kick her out of the country, but I knew it would be the wrong move. The damage had already been done. If anything, kicking her out would just give her fresh new material to write about. Not to mention that the other American outlets would no doubt show solidarity with their countrywoman.

Americans, like their Albish cousins, put a great deal of weight on whether one was a "good sport." Responding to their insults with anger would only earn further derision.

"First things first," I said. "Take the press credentials back from those Hungarians and cut them off from the perks we've been giving out."

"Yes," Elya said, making a note of it.

While I didn't really care about wasting such a trifling amount of money, there was no denying that those men had behaved atrociously. Even their fellow reporters would have to admit that they had abused the privilege they'd been given to the point that it ought to be taken away. We were even on friendly terms with the Hungarian government, so there could be no accusations of bias in our judgment.

The point would be made, though, however gently. We had handed out generous privileges, and we could take them away.

"Second, reach out to Miss Caldwell and arrange an interview, preferably before the elimination round begins," I said. "I assume that you can track her down from her articles."

"Of course," Elya said. "Only, she'll be interviewing...?"

"Me."

Since I couldn't punish Miss Caldwell, I would have to reward her.

ooOoo

 _AN2: It's hard to get precise information about the German nuclear program in WWII, both because it's a contentious issue and because the Nazi bureaucracy was a byzantine mess. However, there is some plausible evidence that suggests that their plan, should they obtain heavy water and uranium, was basically to lump them all together and see what happened. No control rods or anything. The theory was that the reaction would be self regulating. As one wag on AH put it: the nuclear program as a whole would certainly be self regulating under those circumstances._

 _AN3: For people who have asked about the televisions, they are largely being loaned out for free for the duration of the World Cup. After the event is over the location owners will have choice to lease or purchase the television sets._


	33. Chapter 33

_AN: I feel like I'm on a little bit of a roll, wordcount wise. I hope the quality is holding up._

ooOoo

 _June 19, 1940_

I was faced with a bit of a dilemma in choosing the location for my interview by Miss Caldwell. On the one hand, I needed to choose a spot that would impress. Not that I thought I could overawe the reporter. She was from a wealthy background in America, and probably grew up in more opulent surroundings than I'd ever seen. Still, a properly chosen setting could stand as a silent rebuttal to everything that she'd written about her visit to the sticks.

On the other hand, I didn't want to portray myself like some medieval lord, living in the lap of luxury while the people scrabbled to make a living. Or, more to the point, I didn't want to make it easy for her to portray me that way. I already received regular denunciations as a militaristic tyrant, the last thing that I needed was to complete the image of a tin pot dictator by cultivating an aura of hedonism.

In the end, I settled on hosting her in the chancellor's suite in the stadium in München, the day before the Americans were set to host their quarterfinal match. The suite was brand new and nicely appointed, and also carried a certain air of exclusivity. However, those nice decorations were hardly any sort of decadent excess, and it was expected that a country would spend some money on any location meant to host foreign visitors.

I arrived early with a small stack of newspapers under my arm. Opening the door to the suite, I stepped into a room that could have been a reception area at a high end hotel. A few small tables had been scattered throughout the room, each accompanied by a pair of chairs. In the center of the room was a coffee table, surrounded by a couch and arm chairs. The extra furniture had all been removed for the first game of the World Cup so that we could fit as many people as possible into the suite, but the room had now been restored to a more normal configuration.

I dropped the pile of papers on the coffee table and settled in on the couch to the sound of crinkling leather. Once I was in a comfortable reading posture, I reached out and grabbed the first paper and opened it to the front page, displaying the logo of the New Amstreldam Observer. Elya had gotten hold of the American printings of Miss Caldwell's articles. I naturally wouldn't go into my interview without reviewing the work that she had already done.

After reading the article, I could see how Elya had been fooled. Miss Caldwell had played it pretty straight. The unobservant reader could easily be fooled into thinking it was a sincere paean to Germanian greatness. I usually associated dry wit with the Albish, but the Americans were after all their cousins, however distant.

The article only gave itself away in the little details. For example, she described the excitement of driving a mile a minute in the People's Car without mentioning that it took almost a minute to get up to that speed. Not to mention that such a rush could only be maintained with the pedal to the metal. Less subtly, the repeated praise for her meals would set off red flags with anybody familiar with Germanian cuisine.

The most obvious tells, though, came from the clever use of photographs in juxtaposition with the text. She wrote a whole paragraph about the marvel of Germanian technology, only to accompany it with a photo of a group of men fresh off a farmer's field staring at a tiny television set like a bunch of slack jawed yokels. My favorite touch was that the picture of the author and her borrowed People's Car was set next to an advertisement for a Ford V-8 that would thoroughly trounce our bug by any measure.

I set the paper down and considered my approach to the upcoming interview. For all that I had been in the public eye for some time, I hadn't spent much time interacting directly with the press. When I had something that I wanted to say to the public, I could just requisition some time on the radio. Most of the time when the government was going to explain something in detail by way of a conversation with a reporter, it would be handled by one of my underlings. Sure, I gave the occasional press conference, but I'd never sat down for an extended one on one interview before.

I had to consider the nature of my interlocutor. Millicent Caldwell came from old money. She would have been trained from the time she could walk on how to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful. How to judge truth from lie, how to tell friend from foe, how to hide a knife behind a gentle smile and turn normal people into useful tools. Her ability to rise to the top in the cutthroat American media market was testament to her abilities.

I did find it a bit strange that somebody from her background would sully her hands with the work of a reporter. Perhaps some farsighted family member had seen the increasing reach of mass media and had asked Miss Caldwell to step forward and harness its power directly, more efficiently than could be managed from the usual sort of political influence and backroom dealings. Perhaps Miss Caldwell had acted of her own initiative, seizing this form of power on her own when her family hesitated to hand over their more traditional means of influence.

Fortunately, I had no need to puzzle out such mysteries. I simply had to present myself in such a way that Miss Caldwell would find it to her benefit to portray me in a positive light.

I had established some safeguards. I would be recording our interview on a civilian orb. Miss Caldwell would receive a copy, while I would keep the original. In the event that I felt she had reported my words dishonestly or left out vital context, I could issue a correction. I couldn't put much trust in that threat, though, as her article would be spread nationwide with ease, while I would have a hard time getting any corrections heard by the American public.

I took a deep breath and shook out my arms to dispel the tension. Ultimately, I was going to have to rely on my grasp of modern reporting techniques, the use of signaling theory, and my ability to read people.

As much as I admired the artistry of her work, I couldn't simply stand by while an entire country laughed up its sleeves at Germania. I knew that it was too much to hope to turn Miss Caldwell into a sincere fan of our country. If nothing else, she had built up her own brand by now as a satirist. By making a personal appeal, though, taking a ribbing in good fun, I hoped to earn some good will. If nothing else, writing about me would be a distraction from exploring the countryside for fresh material.

A knock on the door meant that the moment had come. I stood and activated the recording spell.

"Come in."

Elya opened the door, escorting a slender brunette with her hair cut in a short bob. Millicent Caldwell was pretty, just as her photographs suggested. Meeting her in person, I could see that she had a certain energy about her, what Americans would call 'moxie.' She also stood an irritating two inches taller than I did.

Once Miss Caldwell was inside, Elya gave me a cheerful nod and stepped out, closing the door behind her.

"I trust you had a pleasant journey, Miss Caldwell," I said, speaking in her native Albish. As a last resort, I could always claim that some unfortunate statement had been a result of a mistranslation. "We have water and fruit juice, if you would care for a refreshment.

"No. Yes. I mean, I don't need anything, and I had a great trip," she said, tripping over her words. "Uh, Chancellor, ma'am."

She seemed nervous. Not something that I expected to pick up on from such an experienced socialite. On the other hand, I didn't know exactly how forceful Elya had been in dragging her to this interview. She had been writing a rather insulting series of articles, so maybe she was expecting me to browbeat her in the guise of an interview. Or worse, depending on what sort of rumors she may have heard about me.

This could be bad. As meek as she may appear at the moment, she could always strike back with a fury once she was safely back in America, pen in hand.

I mustered my friendliest smile and extended my hand. "Please, just Tanya is fine."

"Tanya. Ah, all right. Call me Milly, then," she said, shaking my hand. She finally looked away from me and glanced around the room. "Gosh, this is nice. Are all the suites like this?"

I hummed noncommittally, turning to lead her back into the room to buy time to think. The luxury box was an innovation, but it was just a basic adaptation of the opera box to a new setting. Why would she lead with such a banal question? Did she want to paint the suite as decadent excess? A foolish boondoggle? She might also just be testing the waters with something innocuous. Or trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

Well, in any event, honesty was the best policy. I hopped onto one of the bar stools once we reached the front of the room and turned back to face her, leaning back against the bar.

"The other suites are smaller, but the design is the same. It has proven quite popular with local businessmen," I said. "We're already charging more than we would for the same area of normal seating, and I expect the price to go up in the future."

"Oh. Oh!" she said, then fished her notebook and a pen from an inner pocket. "And, what do you plan to do with these stadiums in the future, Chan-uh, Tanya?"

I smiled. If she was looking to pad out her word count with some easy questions, I'd be happy to deliver easy answers. I'd just have to watch out for any sudden fastballs hidden among the soft pitches.

"Naturally, we hope to find a long term tenant," I said. "Ideally from a newly created professional league."

She nodded. "Right, the soccer clubs here are all amateur operations."

"There is a strong amateur tradition, but I believe the change to a professional footing is inevitable," I said. "There's just too much money involved. A team operating out of this stadium could pay its players good wages and still earn substantial profits, even just off the ticket revenue."

I had just finished having this discussion in a suite much like this one over in Berun during Germania's final game in the group stages. The men from the national football organization had been quite stubborn in the run up to the World Cup, but seeing the size of the crowds moved them, as did a frank discussion of the gate receipts. I was hoping that we could start professional matches in the coming fall. After all, the teams already existed, so it was simply a matter of reorganization.

Miss Caldwell nodded along as I spoke, before cocking her head and plastering a puzzled look on her face. "What other revenue would there be, besides the tickets?"

"Well, there's some money in the food and drink sales, but the real fortune is to be made off television," I said. "Even now, far more people are watching each game on the television than at the stadium. You can't charge them for it, of course, but advertisers will pay for access to that kind of market. Even more so in the future. Televisions get cheaper every year. It won't be too long until there will be a set in every household. You could have millions of people watching each game."

"That would really be something," Miss Caldwell said, giving me such a deadpan earnest look that it took me a moment to realize that I had embarrassed myself.

What was I doing, trying to impress an American with the possibilities of television? Next I ought to go tell General Lergen about the great new military tactic I just invented, the flanking counterattack.

I coughed and cleared my throat, calming myself down before trying to change the subject. "Yes, well, we'll see. Now, Milly, please feel free to ask me about whatever you like. It doesn't need to be related to the World Cup."

She perked up at that and took a step forward, taking the bar stool next to mine. Once she sat down, she leaned forward, her eyes bright.

"Can you tell me," she asked, "how did you feel when you became the first woman elected to lead a country?"

"Surprised," I said. I had, after all, done my best to derail my party's momentum before the time came to vote.

"Do you think that voters were reluctant to vote for a woman?" she asked.

I shifted slightly in my seat. I was, of course, happy to answer questions about the past. It was all a matter of public record, anyways. I was less comfortable with the idea that I was some kind of feminist pioneer. I could get past the hypocrisy, but I refused to allow Being X to twist my mental self image by twisting my body. I might have to suffer through monthly reminders of my current physical gender, but I had spent my truly formative years as a man. I wouldn't be worn down that easily.

I decided to stick with a dispassionate analysis of the election results. I had long since studied what had gone wrong when I tried to lose support.

"Not really," I said. "Voters wanted change more than anything else, and I had been promising change for years. When there's only one store in town, people aren't too picky about the proprietor."

"Well," she said, "what would you say to a young girl who wants to follow in your footsteps?"

"Don't," I replied, on reflex. I saw her eyebrows raise in surprise as she readied a follow up question. As I should have expected, she had picked up on my discomfort and was digging for a juicy story. I had to regain control of the conversation.

"That is," I continued, "I was a famous soldier and then went into politics. But, you shouldn't become a soldier because you want to be famous. Soldiers like that get themselves killed, and often drag their comrades down with them."

Certainly, beating such foolish notions out of new recruits had occupied far too much of my precious time during the war. It would be much better all around if those sorts of idiots found a more suitable line of work. Even if this article was going to be read mostly in the Unified States, the last thing I wanted was an American military full of glory hounds.

I sighed and looked down, spotting the light reflecting off of the Silver Wings Assault Badge that I still wore pinned to my jacket. Such a small thing, and yet it had cast a shadow over my whole career. It was only natural that somebody watching my career from a distance would see it as a useful tool to chase after.

"It always comes back to this," I said, fiddling with the medal. "But, you know, it's not the kind of thing anybody sane would try to earn. I certainly didn't."

"What happened?" she asked, indulging my desire to reminisce despite the fact that the report describing the events of that day was a public record.

"I was on my own, acting as an artillery spotter. Then an enemy company popped out of nowhere, attacking my sector," I said. "It was twelve against one, but if I retreated then they would have had a free shot at our artillery."

Caught between a firing squad if I fled and a whole enemy company if I fought. Leaving aside Mary Sue, it was the most personal danger I'd ever faced. I'd been stuck with a single core orb back then, too. Still better than the Entente had, but not as much of a gap compared to later on.

"I won't bore you with the details," I continued, "but I should have died."

I rubbed my thumb against the medal, lost in thought. I still wondered, sometimes, if Being X had started putting his thumb on the scale that far back. My plan of putting up a brief resistance before taking myself out of the fight with a survivable injury was my own work, I was pretty sure. Being X had never shown that kind of subtlety. No matter what the plan, though, surviving my first fight after being so badly outnumbered seemed a little unlikely.

Not to mention the fact that I was awarded such a prestigious medal afterwards. I hadn't even wiped out the whole company. I couldn't rule out Being X having put the fix in, just for the sake of raising my profile and keeping me stationed on the front lines.

"I really should have died," I said, shaking my head. "Ah, sorry for being so maudlin."

"Not at all," Miss Caldwell replied. "So you wouldn't recommend that anybody join the army?"

"I wouldn't say that," I said, well ingrained reflexes kicking in. I could never endorse such an unpatriotic sentiment. "Just, go into it with realistic expectations. The food is bad, the sleeping conditions are terrible, and a lot of people will try to kill you."

I'd thought I could secure better conditions for myself by joining the military voluntarily and getting onto the right career track. I'd been armed with wisdom beyond my years and knowledge from decades in the future. In the end, though, I had seen a steady diet of trenches, artillery, and dogfights throughout most of the war. If that was the best that I could manage with all of my advantages, the average enlistee didn't stand a chance.

"So," she said, "what would you recommend to all the little girls out there who see you as a role model?"

"Find something you like doing that helps the people around you," I said. The basic principle of capitalism was to earn the highest wage possible by creating value for consumers. "And keep an eye out for opportunities. Don't try to be me. Be you."

She nodded, staying silent for a moment to write down some notes to herself. Once she finished, she flipped through her notebook, looking for something.

"Changing the subject," she said, "some have called you the most eligible bachelorette in Europe. Can we expect to hear about a Mr. Degurechaff any time soon?"

I should have expected that she wouldn't let me stay in my comfort zone of old war stories for too long. Fortunately, I had long been prepared for this line of inquiry, even if it hadn't come up as often as I had expected over the last few years.

"Ah, I don't think I can claim that title," I began. Fortunately, men had always found me more intimidating than attractive, something that was only magnified at the prospect of taking on a first lady sort of role. It wasn't like I was attached to a significant inheritance, either. Point made, I circled back to my stock answer. "Besides, with the duties of the Chancellor keeping me busy, I don't have time for romance."

"You don't have your eye on anybody?" she asked, sounding disappointed.

A flash of brown hair and a gentle smile appeared in my mind's eye, but I shook my head. Even when I'd wanted to get kicked out of office, I had never wanted to do it by dragging Visha through the mud. "I'm afraid not."

She nodded, still writing away in her notebook. "What do you think of the bias cut dress? It's just starting to catch on in America. You have such a wonderful figure for fashion."

I did my best to maintain a placid expression in order to mask the fact that I had no idea what she was talking about. "Honestly, I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing."

If she wanted to portray me as unfeminine, I wouldn't mind at all. Though I never felt truly comfortable appearing ignorant, I didn't particularly feel the need to defend my pride as a woman.

"I suppose you're more used to setting trends than following them," she said. "I have to ask: what's the story behind your dress?"

I relaxed, happy to be back on more comfortable ground. After years of boring dinner parties, I had a well polished arsenal of banal anecdotes. Miss Caldwell certainly knew the answer to her question, but perhaps she just wanted to be able to give the American public the story from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

"You've probably heard that when I started, I only had the one dress," I said. She nodded. "That's not true. One of the other girls at the orphanage outgrew hers, so I had two."

That other girl was fifteen at the time. The dress still fit me, too.

"Those two dresses and my uniform jacket were the only dress clothes that I had, so that was what I wore," I continued. "At that point, I was being paid to give speeches promoting the party. It was only later that I decided that joining full time would be the best way I could serve the country."

Even in hindsight, I thought that it had been a perfectly good plan. By harnessing the votes of the violent malcontents, I would have had a steady job while a group of potentially dangerous revolutionaries would be stuck on the political fringe, powerless. It wasn't my fault that the idiots in charge churned out so many malcontents that I had to take over.

"Well, I wasn't being paid much, but I was being paid. I saved and saved, and finally I was very excited to buy a new set of clothes. Tailored pants, a wool overcoat, even a new hat. I thought I looked sharp," I said. I still couldn't help but feel a bit wistful over the pants. "I went to the beer hall in my new outfit and told everybody I was there to talk about the Germanian Workers' Party. You know what they said?"

I let the rhetorical question linger for a moment before I continued. "They said to get off the stage and go find the girl with the dress."

"What did you do?"

"What could I do?" I asked, then shrugged. "I went and changed clothes."

I'd actually spent ten minutes arguing with the drunkard before I realized that I faced a choice between gratuitous violence and a change in outfit. Since Dressler wasn't paying me to beat up potential supporters, it wasn't much of a choice. That was one of the little details that had been polished out of the anecdote over the years.

"You've been stuck ever since," she said. I suppose to a rich socialite keeping the same basic look for years on end was a fate worse than death.

"I do have other clothes," I said. "Honestly, as a work uniform, it's not so bad. It's comfortable enough to wear for hours on end and the jacket makes it practical in cooler weather."

"Hmm," she said, "you do spend most of your time at work, as you said. But that can't be everything. What do you do for fun?"

"I enjoy flying," I said. "Lately I've been getting in a bit of aerial lacrosse when I have the time."

"Goodness," she said, "isn't that horribly dangerous?"

I laughed for a moment, until I realized that she was serious. "An aerial mage with his shields up is difficult to hurt. You'll see a lot more injuries at a football game than you will from aerial lacrosse."

Aerial lacrosse players were required to have their defensive shells up at all time. The key safety rule, though, was that you weren't allowed to shield off access to the ball. That meant that the level of violence needed to steal possession was much lower than the level of violence needed to hurt the other player.

"Is that so?"

I nodded. "Anything you could do to really hurt each other would be blatantly against the rules."

I could see how you might be able to sneak a mage blade past the referee in the run of play. In a game where every other player was recording the game action, though, the truth would inevitably come out. Since mage blades were absolutely forbidden, it would be hard to defend such behavior as anything but blatant assault.

To be fair, it wouldn't be absolutely impossible to harm someone without breaking the rules. If you could lure them into a dive, hit them hard enough to take out their defensive screen, let the ground break their personal shell, then catch them on the rebound with a reinforced body part to a vulnerable area, that would probably do it. Again, though, it would be hard to play that off as an accident.

"The game is a useful tool for new mages to learn the basics of positioning and leverage for melee combat," I continued, "but hardened veterans can lose their edge if they spend too much time on it. After all, you're practicing getting close and then not trying to kill each other."

"I see," she said.

"Of course," I said, "I don't have to worry about that kind of thing any more. I'm only an amateur mage these days."

I'd had to write out some extended explanations regarding my report on the Type-99 for the development team. Apparently during my time off I'd lost the knack of producing a clear, concise report. Just one more sign that time passes everybody by, eventually. Other than that correspondence, and our recreational lacrosse games, I only interacted with aerial mages in a loose, supervisory fashion.

"You do enjoy playing aerial lacrosse, though?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. It's good fun," I said. "I also think it's a good thing to show people that mages are more than just human-shaped weapons systems."

"What do you mean?"

"The modern magical orb is an amazing device. It could be used for so many things. We could be exploring beneath the oceans, or above the atmosphere. It could even revolutionize something mundane, like construction. A lot of the finishing work on these stadiums was done by aerial mages at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods," I said, shaking my head. "But instead we focus almost all of our efforts on better ways to kill each other."

It worried me, sometimes, that if I ever retired then I would still be on some list somewhere as a national asset to be conscripted in the case of war. If I stayed on as a back bencher, I figured I would be safe. Modern politicians were courteous enough not to draft each other, for the most part. But if I wanted to leave politics altogether for some other venture, I'd always have that worry. Living as a powerless back bencher would be comfortable, most likely, but I was honest enough with myself to realize that I would chafe at the inability to do anything productive. I was just rational enough to prize safety over happiness, as I always had.

Enabling mages to become sports stars would be the first step away from that fear. The real prize would be to set up some kind of industry that required class A mages to operate and that was vital to the interests of the state. Then there would be a safe harbor from the draft to run to if the drums of war began to beat once more. Unfortunately, in the magical arena I didn't have any future knowledge to draw from, so I couldn't simply drop the perfect idea for a new line of magical work in the ear of a convenient entrepreneur.

"I'm not sure I've heard anybody call mages human-shaped weapons systems before."

"Certainly, those who worked with aerial mages in the military treated us as soldiers like any other," I allowed, "but sometimes I wondered if the Empire's rulers saw us like pilots or like airplanes."

Enough time had passed for the emotion to dull, but I still felt an echo of the old anger that had flared up back when I first researched the Empire's legal system after I tested positive for magical ability. As much as I had always appreciated the Empire's rational approach to most problems, I was naturally upset when that rationality trampled over my own human rights.

"The Empire had universal conscription, of course, but there were exceptions. Not just medical invalids, but also men who worked in vital industries were exempt from the draft," I continued, warming to the subject. "But not mages. Mages were subject to conscription, each and every one. What else is that but a law stating that there's nothing a mage can do for the country that's more valuable than taking up a rifle and going off to war?"

"Mages are a unique force on the battlefield, though, aren't they?"

That was the stubborn point at the heart of the matter. It's nice to be useful, but it's dangerous to be indispensable.

"Of course. And of course it's an important job, we need to be able to defend ourselves, but," I said, struggling a bit to put my thoughts into words, "a great carpenter can build you a house. A great baker can create a fine meal. A great soldier, though, only helps you keep what you have. And it's something to be grateful for, yes, but isn't it a pity that we spend so much and work so hard, just to stay in the same place? It's money and effort that can't be used for anything else."

War was a waste. Two nations spent money and lives in a zero sum competition, every bit of their spending making their combined net utility drop. Even preparing for war was a waste. I spent money so my neighbor couldn't invade me, my neighbor spent money so I couldn't invade him, and in the end we'd both spent money for nothing.

The pull of an arms race was almost impossible to resist. And that was without Being X dancing around, fanning the flames. I had done my best to prepare a reasonable defense for Germania without getting sucked into the endless pit of wasteful spending, but compared to a modern, civilized country in the modern, peaceful world, we were still shoveling pallets of cash into a pointless war machine. Even if Being X had never done anything else to mess with me, I would hate him for putting me through such a farce.

"Hmm," Miss Caldwell said, humming in apparent agreement while jotting down some notes. "Considering your record, I'm surprised that you have such a negative view of war."

I stared at her, jarred out of my complacency. Reviewing my last few answers, I was struck by the sudden urge to go back in time and slap off my own stupid mouth.

In my defense, Miss Caldwell had done an excellent job of setting me up. After putting me on the back foot with some uncomfortable questions, she had changed gears and let me switch to more comfortable ground. As I relaxed, she kept me talking without putting me back on my guard, leading to the dangerous situation where I had spoken my true feelings.

I told the truth! To a reporter! I should be ashamed to call myself a politician.

My opinions about warfare were based on my own personal philosophy and the experience of history that nobody else in this world had enjoyed. While I was confident that my opinions were largely obvious common sense, true and right, stating them publicly was still a horrible mistake.

In this era of appeasement, the only rational stance for a nation to take was of barely-restrained belligerence. If your neighbors feared that you might invade then they would knuckle under and give in to your demands. That was the entire reason for my success at the second conference of Londinium. We never would have gotten half so much if the world hadn't been convinced that Germania was poised to launch a reckless and stupid invasion of the Francois Republic.

A rational, peace-loving nation was just begging to be on the other side of the appeasement equation. Instead of neighbors buying you off, you would have neighbors coming around to shake you down.

The consequences inside of Germania would be even worse. The people had been hopping mad and eager for a rematch ever since the end of the Great War. While I didn't mind shedding some support to the ultra-militarists, I didn't want them to take so many voters that they could boot me out and launch a war.

Even short of that, I had to worry about my credibility. As long as the people thought I was as eager for war as they were, then they would naturally trust me when I told them any particular occasion for war was a bad idea. If they thought I was some kind of peace-loving hippie, then they would suspect I was lying to them when I lied to them. An unacceptable state of affairs.

How was I going to fix this? It was too late to claim I didn't understand Albish. I could wipe the recording, but Miss Caldwell could easily reconstruct the key portions of the interview from memory. I could take her into custody to prevent her from writing an article, but it was well known that I was meeting her for an interview. She was traveling with the retired General Morrow, so I could hardly expect any kind of trumped up arrest to hold her for long. Perhaps Elya could arrange something.

No! What was I thinking? I wasn't Being X, lashing out in violence and blaming other people for my own mistakes. I had to address this in a calm, reasonable fashion.

Besides, Elya would arrest me herself if I did something like that to destroy her overblown belief in me as a benevolent, virtuous leader. No, I would have to draw on my future knowledge, which offered a variety of tools for a politician who had accidentally shared their true feelings.

After a moment's thought, I settled on a simple three step process.

I heaved a long, theatrical sigh. "I don't think anyone who's spent time in a trench is fond of war."

The first step was to repeat the problematic statement, but change it to suit my purposes. Now, instead of condemning war as a waste and soldiers as useless, I was simply describing how carrying on a war was unpleasant for soldiers. A much more reasonable sentiment.

Next, I needed to provide context. In other words, I needed to make it clear that my words shouldn't be interpreted according to their simple and obvious meaning, but rather through an esoteric lens that made me look better.

"War always carries a heavy cost. Any nation that goes to war faces a heavy financial burden, and more importantly faces the loss of precious human life," I continued. "Each time a soldier is killed, his whole future dies with him. Decades of contribution to society, gone just like that."

It wasn't that I was a coward who was afraid of war. I was simply a prudent person who weighed the costs and benefits before taking action. Now, to bring it home.

"War is a terrible thing. However," I said. It was a good word, 'however.' If you needed an inconvenient promise, statement, or policy position to disappear, there was nothing better than to repeat it and then follow up with a 'however.' "However, there are worse things than war. To have others steal the fruit of our labor, to suffer impositions on our vital freedoms, to be humiliated on the international stage, naturally all of these things must be resisted by any means necessary. Up to and including the use of force."

No matter what sort of peace loving statement you might have thought you heard me say, I was still ready and willing to declare war any time I felt like it. I only needed the tiniest glimmer of an excuse to unleash the national war machine in a fit of pique. The fact that I had been in office for years now and never declared war was only a result of my good mood over that time period, not any kind of fundamental reluctance to shed blood.

That was the message my supporters wanted to hear.

Miss Caldwell nodded quietly and continued to take notes. I could only hope that I had wiped away any unduly pacifist impression that I had given her earlier. Rather than give an indication one way or the other, she chose to engage me in a discussion of the hats coming out of Berun's boutiques over the last few months. As expected, she was playing her cards close to her chest. I didn't have any choice but to play along.

In the end, I had probably just given her enough ammunition to slant her story any way she liked. It was frustrating, but what was done was done. There was no shame in losing a battle of wits against a savvy opponent.

Fortunately, her article would be written in a foreign language for a foreign newspaper. Most of my voters would be inclined to dismiss anything negative that foreigners wrote about me out of hand, if they even heard about the story in the first place. As for the Americans, no matter how widely her article might be printed, the American consumer would only pay attention to stories that had something to do with his own interests. The personal opinions of a foreign leader would hardly catch his eye.

It would have been nice if my personal intervention had burnished the image of the World Cup in the American eye, but at least I had learned a valuable lesson in the dangers of overconfidence. If my efforts had resulted in creating more work for Visha rather than less, well, it wouldn't be the first time. I was lucky that she was such a patient woman.

ooOoo


	34. Chapter 34

_AN1: I now have a pa treon at pa treon do t co m (slash) jacobk, in case you have been wanting to give me money but were too shy to ask how._

 _AN2: This chapter was delayed by me doing entirely too much research on pre-1950s soccer. As a result, this story now has a lot of soccer worldbuilding done that was entirely gratuitous for the purpose of the actual plot. The TL;DR is that soccer is at IRL 1930s level, in that the seeds of Albion's fall from dominance are visible to the discerning eye (superior organization on the continent, superior footwork in SA), but the problems are masked by Albion's strengths (stronger, faster, better finishing in general)._

ooOoo

 _June 28, 1940_

I thought I had hidden it well, but I certainly had been nervous back when I saw Miss Caldwell off after the photo-op following my interview. I knew I had given her the raw material that she could use to write almost any kind of story that she liked. In the end, though, she played it cool.

She did publish a little article mentioning that the interview had happened and hinting at big things to come, but she didn't share any of the questions or answers. Instead, as the World Cup went on she contented herself with sharing rather banal chronicles of various walking tours of the host cities.

I could only imagine what sort of skulduggery was going on beneath the surface. Well, the deep waters of the American media were Miss Caldwell's domain. I decided to leave her to it and focus my own efforts on making sure that the World Cup continued to go smoothly.

On the football side of things, there wasn't much to do. Visha and the committee had done a wonderful job handling administrative matters, and the country as a whole was enjoying the spectacle. I made myself available for troubleshooting purposes, but in the end all I needed to do was watch the games.

Perhaps buoyed by the home crowds, the Germanian team managed to scrape its way through two straight elimination games and make it to the final. Unfortunately, their opponent would be Albion. The Albish had been on a tear since their shocking loss in the opener, winning by at least three goals in each of the following matches. Well, second place wasn't so bad.

I had more work to do with regard to the aerial lacrosse exhibition. I knew that it was too much to hope for the creation of a full fledged international regulating body with just a few weeks of negotiation, but I did want to lead the way towards standardizing the rules, at least a little bit. The results of the exhibition matches had clearly been affected by the different way that each nation had chosen to approach the game.

The Francois Republic and Legadonia Entente had sent out older teams carrying orbs that dated to the end of the Great War. It seemed that they viewed the game as a pastime for retired soldiers. As a result, other than the Republic's victory over the Entente, neither side had been particularly competitive in their other matches.

The Allied Kingdom had equipped their team with orbs that roughly matched the performance of our sporting orbs. However, the team itself was made up of active duty military mages who didn't seem to have much time to devote to sports. They were able to bully the Legadonians and Francois with their orb advantage, but otherwise didn't display much skill on the pitch.

The Unified States, gung ho as always, had brought their newly acquired dual core orbs out to play. The team was made up mostly of Neumann's students, who must have earned the leisure time to play as a reward for completing his training. Just like their equipment managers, the team itself showed little restraint. They won their first three matches by an average of over three hundred points.

The Germanian team was the top cadet squad from our academy, naturally equipped with our sporting orb. They experienced little trouble in winning each of their first three games by a tasteful one hundred points.

The match between Germania and the Unified States had been left for last, and would be held before the World Cup final. I'd had a feeling those would be the top two sides in the exhibition. While it wouldn't be a true championship, of course, the match would determine who would be the last undefeated team.

I was happy that our country would have the chance to notch a win before getting our brains beaten out on the football pitch. I thought we had a decent shot at it, too. While the Americans were fielding a more powerful orb, our players were noticeably more skilled if you knew what you were looking for. A natural result from all the effort we put into flight training being followed up by regular participation in intramural league games.

I was in the Chancellor's suite, together with a group that had a noticeably magical slant to it. The diplomatic representatives of each of the participating countries were present, as usual, but they were each accompanied by a mage or two who could provide technical advice. We'd all be focusing on the match once it started, of course, but I'd asked that they all show up a bit early so that I could give a brief presentation beforehand.

"Thank you all for coming. I hope that you're all enjoying the exhibition so far," I said. I had taken a seat on the couch in the center of the room, Visha sitting alongside me. Everybody else had gathered around, facing me across the coffee table. "Naturally, now that we've had a chance to learn from the experience, we can consider potential areas of improvement."

The consumer response to the new sport had been mixed. The crowds watching the event live had enjoyed the spectacle, at least, even if they couldn't follow all the intricacies of play. The television audience, though, had mostly been left cold. I'd tried watching one of the games on television myself, and I could understand their lack of interest. Even with magically enhanced reflexes, it was almost impossible to follow what was going on. The action was just too fast for the current level of technology. The players were blurred smears on screen and the television cameras rarely even caught a glimpse of the ball in motion.

Unfortunately, there wasn't too much I could do to push along the development of the television. Larger screens, higher definition, better cameras, and slow motion replay would all make for a much better consumer experience, but my only contribution to any development efforts would be to present the actual engineers with a wish list.

What I could try to do was help to level out the quality of play. Unfortunately, most of the games in the exhibition hadn't been very competitive. It was only natural that viewers confronted with a bunch of total blowouts would stop tracking the score and start cheering for exciting collisions.

The skill of the players would even out over time as they played against each other. I might be able to speed up the process with some special training camps, but that would be way too much work. Besides, the skill gap wasn't the biggest problem. No, the biggest problem was clearly the gap in orb technology. That was something that I could fix.

"I think we can all agree that computation orbs have a strong effect on the performance of the players," I said, before nodding at Visha. "Accordingly, our suggestion."

Visha reached into the satchel sitting next to her on the couch and pulled out a sheaf of envelopes. She passed one out to each of the diplomats. Nobody stood on ceremony, and soon the room was filled with the sound of rustling paper. Each envelope contained a loose sheet of paper describing the technical specifications of the sporting orb, together with a bound stack of papers containing the blueprints and production process.

The Legadonian ambassador was the first to look up from his paper. "What's the meaning of all this?"

Naturally, matters of competitive balance were a touchy subject. In some sports, obtaining quality equipment was part of a player's skill. In automobile racing, for example, preparing the car could be just as important as the driver's ability. Standardizing equipment would be removing a dimension of competition.

What must be even more galling was that I had skipped over any pretense of negotiation and simply proposed a rule. Ordinarily this kind of thing would begin with formal recognition of a problem that would then lead to the creation of a working group that could suggest a draft rule which would then be debated and modified until the regulating body was ready to promulgate the final result. The comforting hand of bureaucracy would smother all objections under the pillow of rules and procedure. A beautiful thing.

Unfortunately, aerial lacrosse had no such governing body. Even worse, it didn't seem likely to generate one. As a failure of a television program that had attracted only passing interest from crowds, a sport only accessible to the tiny fraction of the public that were flight capable mages was far from a sure money maker. If I wanted to open up the retirement option of sports stardom, I was going to have to help things along.

"This is a starting point for discussion," I said.

While it was presumptuous of me, I hoped that providing the blueprint would help to overcome everyone's natural reluctance to get down to brass tacks and discuss magical technology in a forthright manner. The packets I'd handed out didn't contain any real secrets, of course, being based on outdated Francois technology with a little bit of Germanian spit and polish, but simply having a working blueprint for a competitive orb out in the open should remove much of the fear of inadvertently sharing a precious secret.

Visha passed each delegation a small jewel case containing one of our sporting orbs. I'd been hoping that somebody would criticize the orb for being simplistic and underpowered. In that case, I could have said something clever and then set up the big dramatic revelation of the fact that our team had used the sporting orb to secure victory at the end of the match. However, all of our guests proved too professional for such things, instead focusing on the blueprints and the sample orb until it was time to begin the match.

I still planned to reveal the nature of the orbs being used by our team in the event of victory, of course. The basic fact should remain a decent selling point, even if it were revealed as a result of blatant self-promotion instead of the natural flow of discussion.

ooOoo

Unfortunately, the aerial lacrosse match proved to be a great disappointment. Flush off of three easy victories, our squad came out overconfident. The Americans opened with a quick goal, just as they had done in their first few games. Even worse, our team didn't adjust until after allowing two more goals in that opening flurry.

After that, they adopted an overly defensive posture for the rest of the first half. While it slowed down the pace of the American assault, it also meant that our team was barely able to get out on offense. As they took a break for halftime, the score stood at ninety to twenty. I was tempted to send Visha out there to even the odds.

That would be foolish, though. All the effort I had put in to make us look like good sports on the international stage would go to waste if I sent in a ringer just to win an exhibition match. Honestly, even the fact that I had felt such an impulse was a sign that I was getting too caught up in the flow of nationalist nonsense that came along with leading the country.

Fortunately, Weiss must have given them an earful during the break. The team came out after halftime with a much more focused, balanced effort. They still had to be careful not to allow openings that the Americans could exploit with their more powerful orbs, but even so the Germanian team began to claw their way back into the competition.

This was the sort of focus and skill that I had expected to see from the beginning. We might have won if we had started out at such a high level of play. Unfortunately, in the end the halftime deficit proved to be too much to overcome and we lost, a hundred and forty to a hundred and ten.

The team looked heartbroken, huddled together in a small floating ball near the sidelines. They must have felt terrible to have let down the home crowd. I acted on impulse, excusing myself before opening the suite's window and flying down to the field.

I would have needed to make my way to the field for the closing ceremony anyway. Heading down early meant that I could have a quick chat with the team while the Americans were still celebrating. Honestly, I wasn't upset by the loss. Sure, I couldn't publicize their use of the sporting orb as a selling point any longer, but they had played reasonably well. All in all, I thought it should be a good learning experience for them, something more valuable than the result of a single exhibition match.

The crowd reacted as soon as I took flight. By the time I reached our team, the group of them had all gathered around in easy earshot.

"Good effort, everyone," I said. "I'm proud of you."

All I got back in response was a bunch of awkward looks. A few of the players looked like they had something to say, but were holding themselves back.

"What is it?" I asked.

They looked at each other for a moment before silently electing one of the girls on defense to speak for them.

"It's not fair," she complained. "We could have won if we used dual core orbs."

I sighed. Weiss really was going too soft on the cadets these days. I should have known there was a problem when he kept coming in under his artillery budget. It was hard for me to even imagine what was going on with their training for these cadets to think that fairness had anything to do with their lives.

I spun out a quick spell to make sure that my voice wouldn't carry. I also made sure to keep smiling. This kind of pampered attitude was embarrassing enough without broadcasting our cadets' petulance to the world.

"Not fair?" I asked. "Not fair? It's not fair when your company has to hold off a regiment or get an army killed. It's not fair when the man sleeping next to you is killed in the night by artillery shells."

Soldiers on the battlefield didn't worry about fairness when they pulled the trigger. The General Staff didn't worry about fairness back when they strong-armed me into a job on the front lines. Being X certainly didn't worry about fairness when he stuck me in this new life.

"It's not fair when you have to help burn down a city in order to keep the supply line moving," I continued. "Not fair? And you're supposed to be ready to go to war?"

Obviously, it behooved Germania to maintain at least a fig leaf of plausible deniability regarding our magical capabilities. The Francois certainly had their suspicions after Duisbuch and after the Americans showed off their dual core orbs, but suspicions were different from confirmed facts. After all, it was possible that the Americans had simply paid us to train them on how to use dual core orbs after they independently developed the technology. Flaunting our own dual core orbs in public would wipe away that useful ambiguity.

Of course, I wasn't about to debate fine points of national policy with a bunch of cadets. While I could sympathize with their frustration that political priorities were making it unnecessarily difficult to accomplish their narrow goals, what was needed here was not sweet reason but rather a straightforward attitude adjustment. I would start that process now, and remind Weiss to follow up and drive the lesson home.

"Ferreting out this little problem is more valuable than any sporting victory. So smile," I said, looking them over, "smile like you mean it, and carve gratitude for the Americans into your hearts. They may have just saved your lives."

Certainly, if they had flown onto a battlefield with the same lackadaisical attitude that they showed at the beginning of the match, half of them would have died no matter what orbs they were using. That would have been a terrible waste of all the time and money the country spent on training.

The smiles I got out of the team weren't entirely sincere, but they were good enough for government work. I led the group down to the center of the pitch to shake hands with the Americans and pose for some photos. At least figuring out how we were going to adjust our mage training would give me something to think about while we lost the coming football game.

ooOoo

Ian Flemons sat at what had become his customary seat at the bar, its elevated position offering a clear view of the television screen. He focused on jotting down notes in a small notebook, working around the plate containing the remains of his toad in the hole with the ease of long practice. He capped his pen and flipped the notebook shut with a smile just as the series of advertisements on the television finally drew to a close.

The screen changed to display a view of the stadium in Berun, looking down from high above. A moment later it changed again, this time to a view looking up at a dirigible floating by over the stadium, the logo of some Germanian shoe company painted on its side.

 _"Good afternoon, and welcome to beautiful Berun. For the Albish Broadcasting Corporation, I'm Kenneth Wolleston, and with me as always is Robert Winton,"_ the familiar voice came from the television, silencing the crowd at the bar. _"For those of you just tuning in, you missed a cracker of a warm up act."_

 _"I still don't know how those lads get through a match without breaking anything,"_ Winton added, his thick northern accent carrying all the way from Berun.

Flemons flagged down a waitress and put in his first drink order of the afternoon. His report on the aerial lacrosse match was excuse enough for leaving the office early. Now all that was left was to enjoy the rare sight of Degurechaff being humbled for the second time in one day. It was petty, but after the fat lot of nothing that he'd managed to dig up of Germania's secrets, he would take special pleasure in seeing their teams lose.

 _"We've now seen the whole aerial lacrosse exhibition go by without a single injury. Quite remarkable,"_ Wolleston said. _"Also a surprise, the result, with the Unified States taking home the win."_

 _"In fairness, many would say the Germanians left their best player in the box seats."_

 _"Those of you who follow the news, of course,"_ Wolleston said, _"would have heard that the Germanian Chancellor enjoys a spot of aerial lacrosse to keep her hand in."_

 _"I have to say, I'd hate to be the lad standing between her and the goal."_

 _"Indeed,"_ Wolleston said, the shuffling of papers audible as he changed the topic. _"Of course, one young man is suffering a similar feeling right now. We've recently learned that goalkeeper Hans Becker broke a bone in his foot during Germania's semifinal match against Hungary and will be unable to play. That's after their starting keeper, Johan Braun, broke his collarbone in a dramatic collision during the group round. As a result, third string keeper Carl Troeger has been thrust into a starting role."_

 _"Yes, it's a pity. A young lad just seventeen years old facing an offense that has been unstoppable for the last two weeks."_

 _"This will be his first start in organized play,"_ Wolleston added. _"Troeger is the backup keeper for Beruner SV, the club managed by Germanian manager Thomas Köhler. You have to think that Köhler never imagined things would come to this."_

Flemons lifted his beer in salute to the young man who was about to be thrown to the wolves. In truth, he would rather Germania be fielding its strongest possible side. After the way the Albish team had romped past Ispagna and the Unified States, he was confident that they would triumph no matter what. After all, Germania had only beaten Platia by one goal and had needed to win a penalty shootout to get by Hungary.

Still, even if he'd rather Germania not have any room to make excuses about their performance, one thing he'd learned after spending years on the Germania desk was to be happy with any win over them, no matter how it was achieved. He wished young Troeger all the luck with a long and happy career, starting with his next game. Perhaps losing to the Albish would even prove a good learning experience for the young man.

ooOoo

Carl Troeger sat on a bench, eyes closed, head resting against his locker. The locker rooms in the new stadium still didn't smell right. Too fresh, even three weeks into the tournament. It didn't feel like a real pre-game meeting without mildew tickling his nose.

Köhler was standing in front of a blackboard lecturing the rest of the team on tactics, but that didn't have much to do with him. All he had to do was roll the ball to the open man. At least, he hoped that was what he'd be doing, rather than picking the ball out of the net and kicking it back to the center circle.

Troeger shook off the negative thought. He needed to focus on something more productive. After Becker was ruled out, Köhler had hardly let him practice. The team could hardly risk having its last keeper taken out by a freak injury. As a result, Troeger had spent most of his time the last few days in the film room.

One of the many luxuries included in the team's temporary housing, the film room was stocked with an intimidating array of technological equipment. Fortunately, Troeger had been able to consult with a government expert in order to set up the film the way he wanted it. The crowning result of his efforts was a film of every shot taken by the Albish team throughout the tournament.

By now, Troeger felt like he knew the Albish strikers better than he knew his own family. They were all big, strong, and fast. And they each had their preferences. Bastin played on the left but liked to shift the ball to his right foot to shoot. Bowers, in the middle, was happy to blast long shots in from just about anywhere. Crooks, the outside right, would dribble the ball into the goal if he could. Each attack was different, of course, but after watching them all Troeger had started to get a feel for their rhythm. At least, he thought so.

A silence briefly fell over the locker room. Troeger opened his eyes to see that Köhler had come to the end of his instructions. The manager was now looking the team over, assessing the mood.

"Remember, men, the eyes of the whole country will be on you! The Argent Silver herself will be watching from the stands!" Köhler said. "Get out there and make her proud!"

The team let out a yell of acknowledgment before making their way out of the room to line up in the hallway that led to the pitch. After they left, Köhler looked over at his young goalkeeper and sighed.

"Do your best out there, kid."

Troeger just nodded before heading out to the pitch. He couldn't bristle at his manager's lack of confidence, not when he felt much the same way himself. Sure, he'd imagined that he would become a great keeper and dazzle crowds on the biggest stages, some day. He'd never thought that at seventeen he'd debut with the Argent Silver watching and the World Cup on the line.

He shook his head. At his age, the Argent was retiring from the military after eight years at war. What was playing a game next to that? At least when the Albish shot at him, they wouldn't be using rifles.

All the positive thinking in the world didn't stop the butterflies in his stomach from multiplying as he stepped out in front of the enormous crowd. He did his best to tamp them down. No matter how many people were watching, the goal was the same size it always was. He'd always been tall, strong, and quick. Köhler had told him many times that he'd be a great keeper. He tried to ignore the fact that Köhler usually added "in a few years" to that kind of praise.

All he could do was try his best.

His confidence came under fire early. The Albish took the opening kickoff and worked it down the field with purpose. The inside forward played a sharp pass through to Bowers, leaving him open to take a shot just outside the eighteen yard box. Troeger thought he looked likely to aim for the right half of goal. He started to lean that direction, then stopped. What if it was a fake? Moving too soon could leave him completely out of position.

Troeger was still frozen as Bowers blasted the ball. It shot towards the right side of the goal. Troeger moved, but too late. He could only watch as the ball flew by him… and struck the post! He quickly corralled the rebound, hugging the ball to his chest with a prayer of thanks.

He looked up at the Chancellor's suite, mortified by his mistake. The Argent was famous for her decisive nature. Even flying head first into danger, she never second guessed herself. If he was going to give his team any kind of chance against the Albish, he'd have to learn from her example. No half measures.

On the next attack, the leading role fell to Bastin on the left. Troeger began to move as soon as the man touched the ball and a shot that might have required a diving save was instead easy for him to scoop up and kick the other way.

As the team scrambled to try to put an attack together, Troeger looked up at the Chancellor's suite and smiled. The Argent Silver's belief in Germanian ability was legendary. He still had another eighty minutes of work to do in order to prove worthy of that confidence.

ooOoo

 _"Another diving save! The referee has blown the whistle for half time, which means we go into the half at level pegging,"_ Wolleston said, his voice echoing in what had long since become a sullen silence at the Royal Oak. _"Certainly not what we expected."_

 _"Troeger has been a revelation,"_ Winton chimed in. _"Top class, absolutely top class goalkeeping."_

 _"He's certainly built a wall in front of the net here in Berun. Should Albion be worried, do you think?"_

 _"Not yet. It's been one way traffic for the whole half. With one team taking all the shots, you have to think they're bound to score eventually."_

Ian Flemons grumbled to himself as he pulled a cigarette from his inside pocket. He liked watching the Albish side run up and down the field as much as anyone, but it lost its luster when every trip down the pitch ended up in the hands of that bloody wall. He'd lost count of how many promising possessions had ended the same way, until the television displayed a helpful graphic reminding him that Albion was ahead sixteen to two on shots, and that Troeger had eleven saves at the half. And that wasn't even counting the time he'd snuffed out a possession by diving in and taking the ball off Crooks's foot.

Sure, it stood to reason that Albion would win. But if the Devil of the Rhine was constrained to reasonable possibilities, his job wouldn't have been such a nightmare for the last few years.

ooOoo

Carl Troeger slumped onto the bench in the locker room, hissing at the aches and pains that were making themselves known now that he was taking a rest. His bruises were going to have bruises tomorrow. A small price to pay for a clean sheet.

The other players filed past, giving him a wide berth as they gathered near the blackboard. None of them wanted to jar him out of the fairy tale spell that had seen him stand in the path of the unrelenting Albish attack and turn every shot aside.

Troeger was feeling a bit superstitious himself. If he hadn't been tested as a child and found thoroughly lacking in magical potential, he would have wondered if he had accidentally cast a spell just by wishing for it, like the wizards in the old stories. As it was, though, he could only count himself fortunate and hope that his good fortune held up.

He listened with half an ear as Köhler dictated their halftime adjustments.

"Schneider, Werner, Lange," he said, calling out the team's forward line, "you're to fall back level with the halfbacks. Press forward if you have the ball with open space in front of you, but otherwise defend, defend, defend."

It seemed they were giving up entirely on the idea of scoring. With three fullbacks and now five halfbacks, poor Krause and Maier were the only two players with freedom to attack. Of course, the more balanced approach had only yielded two decent shots while giving up too many to count, so maybe the manager knew what he was doing.

"We must cut off the supply to the Albish front line," he continued. "Kick anything that moves. If it's the ball, so much the better!"

The team yelled out in agreement, surprisingly enthusiastic about abandoning the offensive third. The manager waved them to silence, then looked at Troeger.

"Carl, keep doing what you're doing."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, nodding. It wasn't like he'd planned to do anything else.

The change in tactics caught the Albish off guard. Straight out of halftime their halfback kicked a pass right at Lange, never thinking he would be playing so deep. The turnover turned into Germania's best chance so far, though it ended with the ball safely in the hands of the Albish keeper.

As the game wore on, the Albish adjusted to the Germanian change in plans, bringing more and more players further up the pitch. Even so, the sheer mass of bodies in the defensive third made it hard for the Albish to find the golden scoring opportunities that had come in bunches during the first half.

In the end, when they proved unable to manufacture a clean break into the box, the Albish began to settle for more and more long shots. Troeger had to punch one over the crossbar and another out of bounds to the side, but otherwise he was able to field them without much fuss. It was a pity that after he kicked it out the Albish would have it back almost immediately, but at least they always had to work hard before they got their next shot off.

When the referee finally blew the whistle for the end of ninety minutes, the crowd roared, but Troeger didn't let himself get too excited. He still had another half hour of work to put in.

Albion looked to apply even more pressure in the extra time. Their whole team kept pushing, pushing for the winning goal. After a diving save in the hundred and tenth minute, Troeger popped to his feet and felt his eyes go wide.

Up ahead, Krause started a diagonal run. The Albish fullbacks had pushed up all the way to midfield. The way Krause was moving from left to right, a long pass would see him clean through on the goal, and Krause could fly with the ball at his feet.

A long boot from Troeger would give the defense time to get set, though. Fortunately, Lange had leaked out on the right wing and was unmarked.

Troeger didn't waste any time in thought, simply running forward and throwing the ball as hard as he could. He could only pray that Lange had seen what needed to be done.

ooOoo

 _"Throw in awarded to Albion,"_ Wolleston said, still energetic as he neared his second hour of commentary. _"They've had everything their own way right up until they run into that wall in front of goal. There's a shot, and another diving grab by Troeger."_

Ian Flemons snorted, then took another drink. This latest pint was getting worryingly light, so he signaled to the bartender for another round. He couldn't even get excited when Albion strung a possession together any more. The whole team just seemed helpless once it was time to breach the mouth of the goal.

 _"Troeger makes a long throw. Lange sends it up field with his first touch."_

 _"Look out!"_

Flemons snapped his head around, focusing on the television just in time to see a white-shirted player streaking down the field. The ball came whipping into the frame, and he was still all alone. Surely, there must have been some mistake.

 _"Krause has taken it on the run. It's a race!_ " Wolleston said, a hint of desperation breaking through his professional facade. _"Can Hapgood catch him?"_

Flemons stared at the screen. The white-shirted forward kept running for what felt like days. Finally, a man in the dark grey colors the television rendered out of Albish red came slashing in from the side. Just as the defender laid out in a slide tackle, the forward stepped on the ball, coming to a halt.

 _"Oh, he's done the defender,"_ Winton moaned. Flemons hardly heard him.

On screen, the forward nudged the ball to the right, then blasted a shot from no more than twelve yards out. The ball hit the crossbar, pounded straight down into the ground, then bounced out of the net. Another defender finally came across the goal to blast the ball out of touch.

The entire crowd at the Royal Oak erupted into a confused babble. Whoever was running the camera in Berun was just as confused, shifting from the celebrating Germanians to the official to the linesman without much rhyme or reason. When the local crowd finally quieted down enough for Flemons to hear Wolleston's commentary, he didn't sound very certain of what had happened either.

 _"Was it... surely not? Now it seems the head referee is conferring with the linesman,"_ Wolleston said. _"Initially, the referee had pointed at the center spot, while the linesman wanted to award a throw in to Germania."_

 _"It was very close,"_ Winton added. It seemed the color commentator's duty of stating the obvious had carried over from the radio to the television.

On screen, the view of the conversation between the referee and linesman was wiped away, replaced with a still shot of the Germanian forward with his foot drawn back to kick the ball. A moment later, his foot moved forward, much slower than it had in real time.

 _"Now, I'm told that in the studio we can take another look at things, and, yes,"_ Wolleston said, beginning to narrate the replay, _"there you can see, the shot deflects off the bottom of the crossbar almost straight down. It then bounces off of Tremilling's outstretched arm as he lays on the ground. As soon as it bounced out, Allen is there to kick it away out of bounds. Your thoughts, Robert?"_

 _"Well, as a goalkeeper, you know, I always reminded people that the ball has to get all the way cross the line. This is so close, though, I just can't tell."_

 _"The referee has to make a decision without benefit of the replay, of course."_

 _"He'll have forty thousand people looking to help him make the call."_

The crowd at the bar certainly wasn't shy about making their opinions known. Naturally, the local fans all agreed that it obviously wasn't a goal. Flemons found himself nodding along with the general sentiment until one hopeful young man said that even if it was a goal, they still had ten minutes to find an equalizer. Flemons grimaced and took a drink from his freshly delivered pint, turning his attention back to the television. Ten minutes wasn't much time compared to the hundred and ten that had already been squandered.

 _"I should add that our head official is from the Waldstatte Confederacy and the linesman is from Legadonia,"_ Wolleston was saying, _"in case any viewers are worried-oh, it seems we have a decision."_

 _"No goal!"_

 _"Indeed, the official has indicated that Germania is to throw the ball in from the sidelines,"_ Wolleston said. _"I have to say, Robert, from the moment Krause kicked the ball, for it to stay out, you almost have to credit the hand of God."_

 _"Credit the hand of God, but you also have to tip your cap to the arm of Tremilling,"_ Winton replied. _"If he didn't get across the goal, who knows where that ball would have bounced."_

Flemons felt his heart settle back into his chest. This was far from the glorious romp that he had hoped for, but there was still every chance Albion could win this game. Worst come to worst, they would just need to keep their composure in the penalty shootout.

ooOoo

Carl Troeger didn't feel upset when Klause's goal was waved off. Not really. It never felt real to him, the idea that they might score a goal and beat Albion. When the referee signaled for a throw in, it was simply the end of a pleasant daydream and a return to the waking world.

The near goal did serve to wake up the Albish to the risks they had been taking. They pulled back all of their extra attackers, intent on preventing any future counter attacks. With Germania defending with a numbers advantage, the last ten minutes of extra time were spent uselessly kicking the ball around in the middle of the pitch. In the end, as he'd started to expect long ago, it would come down to a penalty shootout.

Albion won the coin toss and elected to force Germania to kick first. Krause insisted that he take the first shot. He buried the ball in the top right corner and spent a moment staring down the linesman before returning to celebrate with the team. Even as Troeger began jogging out to take his place in goal, he heard the first words out of Krause's mouth.

"That one was over the fucking line."

He smiled and shook his head. First up for the Albish was Bowers. As expected, the man didn't waste much time thinking things over. Once he placed the ball, he took a few steps back before immediately charging forward. Something in Troeger's mind told him to go left, and he was diving even as the ball was kicked.

Bowers kicked it harder than Krause had, but fortunately didn't place it as well. The ball caught Troeger in the stomach, and he curled up around it almost involuntarily. He crashed to the ground and took a moment to catch his breath before letting his teammates help him to his feet. He accepted their pats on the shoulder with a nod and returned to the sideline to watch the next shot.

Schneider thought he was more clever than he was. He liked to pantomime a penalty shot to the right while pushing the ball to the left. As long as the keeper stood his ground it would be an easy save. Troeger said a brief prayer that Schneider would know well enough to leave that nonsense on the training ground and take a proper penalty shot.

His prayer went unanswered. Schneider pushed the ball left, slowly rolling it towards the goal line. Fortunately, the Albish keeper was jumpy, and had laid out in a full dive to the right as the ball was kicked. He was helpless to do anything but watch as the ball trickled into the net.

Again, the team celebrated. Again, Troeger jogged out to his spot in goal.

It was Bastin this time. He took a moment to size Troeger up before beginning his approach. Again, Troeger's instincts told him to go right. He leaned to the side and was about to dive when he caught a glimpse of Bastin's face. Something about it reminded him of Schneider, right before he tried his stupid trick shot.

Troeger desperately tried to stop his momentum. As he did, Bastin struck the ball and sent a light chip right towards where Troeger had been standing. He was too far over to right himself. All that he could do was try to turn the motion into a jump into the air instead of a leap to the side. He lashed out with his left foot, desperately trying to reach back.

He felt the ball hit his foot. He didn't know if he'd stopped it, not completely. As he hit the ground, though, he heard the roar of the crowd. Sitting up, he saw just what he had hoped for: the ball was gently bouncing to a stop, two feet in front of the goal line.

Next up was Werner. He was a big, strong, man. Usually his job was to fight for the ball in front of goal and to try to manufacture a shot. He had done yeoman's work in the second half as a sort of advanced fullback, snuffing out Albion's plays before they could develop. Finesse and skill, unfortunately, weren't really part of his game.

Werner knew his own limitations, and apparently decided to leave things up to God. He ran straight forward and punched at the ball with his toe, launching the ball with no real thought of aiming. The Albish keeper was stuck flat footed as the ball screamed over his head, lightly kissing the crossbar before ripping into the back of the net.

Troeger was starting to feel some jitters, now. With three goals in the bank, any save by him or goal by his team would mean a win. He could end the game, end the tournament right now, bringing home the trophy for his country.

He patted his chest to calm himself down and glanced up at the chancellor's suite, feeling a little ridiculous as he regained his sense of perspective. The Argent Silver had charged into battle against twelve men all by herself at the age of nine. He had his whole team on his side to pick him up in case he missed. He should keep things in perspective.

Still, he'd like to keep a clean sheet.

Bastin approached the penalty spot. It looked like the moment might be getting to him as well. As he sized up the shot and made his approach, Troeger suddenly felt he knew exactly what was going to happen. It was going to be a fake to the left and a shot to the right.

He kept his feet planted on the ground, ignoring the fake. As soon as the shot came out, slowed by the trickery, he knew he would get to hit. He crouched slightly in preparation for launching himself to the side.

Then the entire right half of his body was on fire and God was yanking him down to the ground. He managed to at least fall to the right and stretch out with his left hand. The shot wasn't very good. Not very fast, not very far out of reach. He managed to touch it, feeling just the slightest tickle on the tip of his fingers before the ball was past.

He managed to use his left arm to roll himself on his back and screamed, pounding the ground once, twice, three times. He still didn't feel any better about conceding the goal, but it helped distract him from the pain. It felt like every muscle down his right side had clenched up at the same time.

He was dimly aware of a circle of faces gathering around to look down at him, and then of being carried off the field. When he saw Lange heading out to take his shot, though, he shoved the doctor away.

"Help me sit up."

The doctor took one look at his face and sighed before helping him up. Once he was upright, the doctor produced a bottle of water from somewhere and shoved it into his hands.

"You need to hydrate."

Troeger ignored him, focused entirely on the pitch. Lange was setting up his shot. Good old, dependable Lange. No tricks, nothing fancy, just a powerful shot tucked neatly inside the far post. The Albish keeper didn't have a chance.

Troeger was pretty sure he was yelling, but with every member of the crowd losing their minds he couldn't hear himself to be sure. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but before he could the rest of the team had gathered around and hoisted him on their shoulders before marching out toward the pitch. He'd lost his bottle of water somewhere, but he found he didn't much care. He did at least have the presence of mind to raise his hands and point towards the woman who had served as his guiding light.

ooOoo

Ian Flemons had lost track of how many beers he had gone through on the afternoon. No matter how drunk he was, though, he could still count. At a deficit of three to one, Albion could still win. They just had to stop every shot and score every chance, starting now.

He admired Troeger's performance and hoped the lad wasn't seriously injured. He wished him a full return to health… tomorrow.

A hush had fallen over the bar as the next Germanian stepped onto the field. Wolleston's commentary filled the room.

 _"Lange is lining up for his kick. Some people are spilling out of the stands. They think it's all over… it is now! That's four."_

Flemons felt his shoulders slump. It had been a thin reed, but up until the last shot had gone in a part of him had still refused to believe that they might lose. Football was an Albish sport. The only reason the continent had picked it up was because of clubs organized by bored Albish expats. It boggled the mind that they had already been beaten at their own game.

A feminine hand patted him on the shoulder.

"Cheer up Mr. Flemons. There's always next time."

He looked up to see a pretty blonde collecting his empty pint glasses and depositing them on the tray she was holding above her head. Well, maybe the day wouldn't be a complete waste.

"I'm sorry love, you seem to have me at a disadvantage."

"You don't remember," she sniffed, turning up her nose. "Typical."

He watched her walk away for a moment before lowering his forehead to the bar with a groan. Drunk and depressed, he was in no state to be pulling birds. He just needed to remember where he put his notebook so he could go home and try to sleep. Hopefully, everything would look better in the morning.

ooOoo

 _September 2, 1940_

In the end, we managed to get through the World Cup without embarrassing ourselves. Even after the foreign journalists had a chance to go home and sober up, they continued to treat us with kid gloves. If they were hoping that I would keep spreading around freebies in exchange for positive press for the next big event to roll around, I could only applaud their good judgment.

Miss Caldwell finally played her hand a month after the tournament had ended. The popular Life magazine did an issue commemorating our team's surprising victory: The World Cup: A Germanian Triumph. She secured for herself top billing and almost half the magazine for a compilation of her satirical travel journal. Her interview with me was reproduced word for word in a separate article.

It seemed that whatever bargain she had struck with the magazine had required that she play the interview straight. It was probably just my own good fortune rather than any deliberate courtesy on her part, but I still resolved that if she tried to call in a favor, I'd do my best to oblige. It was never a good idea to pick a fight with anybody who bought ink by the barrel.

On the financial side of things, the balance sheet turned out shockingly well. Hosting weeks-long citywide parties in four major cities probably didn't do any favors to our industrial productivity, but it had certainly brought in the tourists. While Germania's central location made it irritatingly easy to get drawn into a multi-front war, it also meant that most of Europe could reach one of the World Cup hosting cities by way of a very affordable train ticket.

The real boost to the bottom line, though, was the real estate development. It turned out that developing a semi-rural piece of land into a middle class urban neighborhood, complete with a rail link to the city center, really drove up property values. Once we finished selling off the non-stadium portions of the stadium villages, the whole World Cup project would be firmly in the black.

To be fair, it was still a bit of a loss if you included the cost of all of the television broadcasting infrastructure, but I considered that to be an investment in the future. By showing the commercial viability of television, I would encourage competition from the private sector, ensuring that within a few years our citizens would become cynical, sophisticated consumers of the news. For now, I just reminded Elya that our nightly news broadcast should be fair and balanced.

On the more intangible balance sheet, Germania's national enthusiasm for football had certainly taken off. The professional league had been organized and leases signed for the use of the World Cup stadiums almost immediately after the tournament ended. If I had to identify one disappointment, it was that Carl Troeger had enlisted in the army as soon as he turned eighteen, costing the new professional league a valuable promotional tool. Even so, it seemed set to be a great success.

Matters in Ildoa also continued to tilt further and further in our favor. The democratic side had pushed past the Arno, and it looked like they would capture the capital by Christmas. I didn't even have to do anything.

With everything falling into place, I spent an entire beautiful fall day without having to make a single important decision. When I went to bed, I found myself starting to believe that I would be able to serve out an uneventful term as Chancellor and retire in peace.

Naturally, the next day I woke to the news of a Francois army storming into the Po Valley.

ooOoo

 _AN3: It was cramps, he's fine._


	35. Chapter 35

_AN1: I didn't realize how aggressively this site filters out the mythical pay tree on. If you want to look me up on there (same id), that's cool, if not, also cool. I do appreciate all the reviews and favorites._

ooOoo

 _September 2, 1940_

Normally, I was happy when Visha showed up at my door with a cup of coffee in hand. Normally, she hadn't just woken me up an hour before the usual time. Also, she normally didn't have such a grim expression on her face, nor a letter in her hands.

I barely kept from swearing when I read the news of the Francois invasion of Ildoa. What the hell were they thinking? One war had been enough for me, and I'd just been defending my country. I really didn't understand how they could be so enthusiastic about launching another unprovoked invasion. It wasn't like the last two had gone very well for them.

By rights, the Albish ought to nip this in the bud. Unfortunately, in this world with Being X, common sense was quite uncommon. I was probably going to have to end up dealing with the fallout from this mess.

I told Visha to schedule an early meeting, knocked back most of the coffee in one go, and headed back to take a shower. It was something of an indulgence, but if I didn't take the time to wake up properly before work I was liable to do something I'd regret, like start a war.

When Visha and I arrived at the office, we were met by Elya, ready to escort us to the meeting. As this was to be a meeting of the entire cabinet, Elya would be limited to the role of an ordinary secretary. Foreign Minister Zettour would be presenting any information she had gathered. I'd meet with her afterwards to discuss anything too sensitive to be aired in front of the cabinet.

When we arrived at the conference room, I looked around to see plenty of evidence of recent awakenings and hasty preparation. Understandable, as it was still well before normal working hours. At least everybody looked reasonably alert. I didn't make a habit of calling emergency meetings, so even the cabinet members who hadn't heard whispers of the invasion knew that something serious was afoot.

I turned to Zettour as I took my seat. "What's going on?"

"A Francois army of over one hundred thousand men has battered their way through the Alpine passes," he said, then paused to let the shocked exclamations fade. "The Francois claim that Ildoan democratic agitators have been recruiting and rabble rousing near the border, culminating in attempted arson of a courthouse in Menton."

"Attempted arson?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "They couldn't be bothered to burn down a building to sell the story?"

Even the Kwantung Army hadn't been that lazy. The Francois must not have cared whether anybody believed their story. I hoped it was due to misplaced arrogance, rather than anything more sinister.

"In any event," Zettour replied, "that's their excuse for accepting Muzzioli's long standing invitation to intervene in the Ildoan civil war."

Muzzioli had made no secret of his desire to cozy up to the Francois government. Up until this morning, the Francois support had been limited to covert weapons shipments and volunteers, much like our support for his opponents.

"Why didn't I hear about this sooner?"

It stood to reason that the Francois, finding themselves on the losing side of the game, had decided to flip the table. I was a little disappointed not to have any advanced warning, though. I'd been under the impression that our spy network was more competent than the Empire's had been.

"The Francois have been conducting military demonstrations along the border for some time. In addition, there had been some civil unrest in the area," Zettour said. "We didn't realize there was anything special to this buildup until they made their move."

To be fair, Elya had also probably thought that given the recent conference in Amstreldam and the Albish ultimatum, an invasion was highly unlikely. The advantage enjoyed by a party who picks a self-destructive strategic course is that he will catch people by surprise, at least at first.

"And they're already through the Alps?" I asked. "Were the Ildoans even garrisoning the border?"

The Alps were the sort of wonderful natural barrier to invasion that I would love to have on our every border. Sure, Hannibal had managed to sneak some elephants across them back in ancient times, but I had been under the impression that border defenses had improved in the ensuing millennia.

"Preliminary reports suggest that the Francois invasion force was accompanied by over a thousand mages," he replied.

"That would do it," I said. "Where did they come up with so many mages?"

That was an absurd concentration of magical force. Against mountain bunkers that were largely a series of machine gun nests, they would have been able to clear a path with ease.

I had a hard time accepting the number, though. Even the Empire had never gathered so many mages in one place. After the losses suffered by the Francois in the Great War and at Duisbuch, I would have thought they'd have trouble scraping up a thousand A and B rank mages even if they trawled through their whole population, regardless of age. They had to be receiving support from another country. If we could identify the source of those mages, it would go a long way toward explaining why the Francois thought this invasion was a good idea.

"We're still investigating the matter," Zettour said. "I'll report back when we have more than rumor and speculation."

I nodded. The truth would come out in time. "What are the Albish doing?"

The Allied Kingdom was the key to all this. It was their Prime Minister who had claimed that any invasion of Ildoa would be treated as an act of war. I was of course closer to the action and more likely to suffer directly from Muzzioli's takeover, but it was the Allied Kingdom whose face had directly been slapped by the Francois invasion.

"They've sent a strongly worded letter to the Francois government," he said, "demanding that they withdraw their troops."

I waited a moment, but he stayed silent. Finally, I had to ask. "What else?"

"That's it," he said, shrugging helplessly.

"Well, as long as it's strongly worded," I said, shaking my head. At least it was still early. There was time for the Albish to find their spines. In the meantime, I needed to know what we could do before I could decide what we should do. "General Lergen, what can we do about this?"

I was worried that my frugality was going to come back to haunt me now. I would happily take our army's technology over anybody else's, but the army's overall striking power was constrained by its relatively small size. I'd been trying to avoid being too provocative, not realizing that the Francois didn't need to be provoked before starting a war.

Fortunately, General Lergen was all business. He didn't rub my nose in my failure to end the Ildoan civil war with a decisive invasion back when I'd had the opportunity. Instead, he focused entirely on what we could do in the current situation.

"Broadly speaking, we see three strategic options," he said. "First would be to fight the Francois army directly in Ildoa. We should be able to drive them out, but inflicting a decisive defeat would be unlikely."

That wasn't too much of a surprise. Success on the level of Operation Revolving Door was the exception, not the rule. I was pleased that he was confident in victory, even if the overall result wasn't particularly appealing.

"The second choice would be to cut them off from their supply lines. That would require that we traverse the Waldstatte Confederacy," he continued. "The projected results would vary depending on whether that would be that traversal was peaceful or not."

Yikes. In fairness, it was General Lergen's job to present options, and my job to choose among them. That said, his calm demeanor as he presented the option of invading our neutral neighbor—the only neighbor with which we hadn't gone to war in the last century—made me worry that he might just do something crazy if I didn't find him somewhere to invade soon.

I did my best to stay calm and waved a hand dismissively. "Let's table that one for now."

He remained unperturbed by my preemptive dismissal of his plans. At least he was still willing to follow orders. He was too valuable to dismiss outright just because of a little over aggression. Most of the generals in the army shared his outlook, after all. They called it patriotism.

I did worry, sometimes, that the only reason he held back was because he agreed with me that the particular invasions under discussion were a bad idea. If he thought some invasion was a good idea, well, I could only hope that I wouldn't wake up some day to find our army occupying some capital or another.

"The final option would be to drive straight for Parisee," he said. "If we could put them under enough pressure then they would not be able to continue to support their army in Ildoa."

Ah. That explained his calm. I didn't doubt that he preferred going directly at Parisee instead of slogging through the Waldstatte Confederacy.

"Could we take Parisee?"

I could see the logic of it. If we were going to war with the Francois Republic, then fighting them in Ildoa would be a pointless sideshow compared to taking their capital. Of course, the Albish would probably be upset if we responded to an invasion of Ildoa by marching straight towards Parisee. It was only a really attractive option if we could settle matters quickly, before the Allied Kingdom had a chance to make up its mind and butt in.

"Eventually, yes," he said, before pausing to push up his glasses. "Although the sudden appearance of a thousand mages in a single unit is worrisome."

Indeed. Seeing a thousand mages in the field suggested many more in reserve. Even if the thousand mages were all that they had, mages were highly mobile. It would be easy to pull just the mages back from Ildoa and set them on our invasion force.

Our own mage corps was, roughly speaking, two hundred and fifty newly trained mages plus the fifty former members of the 203rd. Leaving out the mages permanently assigned to the academy, we could put seven more or less full battalions in the field. Even if most of them were unblooded rookies, I was confident that our training and our orb technology was ahead of the Francois. Still, the numerical disadvantage was daunting. Our mages would have to employ very cautious tactics in order to whittle down the Francois forces, avoiding pitched battle as much as possible. Taking that kind of approach would of course slow down the army's invasion plans quite a bit.

"I'm afraid I have something to add," Zettour said. "This photograph was taken last week in the port of Brest."

He slid a photo onto the conference table. As soon as I saw it, I was overcome with a nearly irresistible urge to curse Being X right then and there. If I could find that bastard, I'd shoot him in his stupid face without hesitation.

Right there in living color was a ship flying the flag of the Russy Federation. Even worse, an oil tanker. Eager as the communists were to build their socialist paradise on top of the bones of those who thought differently, they barely traded with foreign markets. Especially oil, the lifeblood of modern industry. Logically speaking, the presence of the oil tanker was a political statement.

If I'd known that the Francois had hopped in bed with the commies, I wouldn't have been nearly so sanguine about the situation.

"Why wasn't I shown this before?"

I did my best to keep my voice level. It didn't do anybody any good to see the boss fly off the handle.

"We wanted to pin down what is going on, not just speculate based on a single photo," Zettour said. "So far, all that we know is that Russy flagged cargo vessels have been a common sight in Francois ports over the last two weeks. Members of the Francois government have softened their anti-communist rhetoric lately, as well."

Wonderful. If the Russy Federation was shifting its focus from promoting international socialism to more traditional power politics, then the mess in Ildoa was the least of our problems.

Even worse, this suggested a sinister answer to the mystery of the thousand mages. It was hard to get information out of the Russy Federation. One story that was all too common, though, was that every member of the population was forced to undergo magical testing. Those who scored an A or B rank were immediately ushered into government vehicles, never to be seen again.

I'd assumed that the communists had simply deemed them enemies of the revolution and shot them in the back of the head. Now, though, I had to wonder. A country the size of the Federation could easily have a thousand flight capable mages within its borders. Or on loan.

The silver lining in that case was that we were being given a shot at the mages without having to worry about the rest of the communist military, at least for the moment.

"New question," I said, turning back to General Lergen. "Can we reach Parisee before the Red Army batters its way through Pullska and reaches our borders?"

"It would be close," he said. Judging by his expression, the answer was no, but he didn't want to admit it.

Zettour jumped in. "We can't say for sure that the Francois and the Rus are working together."

Sometimes I envied those who weren't burdened by the knowledge of future history and their limited ability to imagine disastrous possibilities.

"It makes too much sense," I said. "Jughashvili was feeling the heat over his eastern conquests, so he paid the Francois to start trouble. Now that they have, he won't let us knock out his puppet so easily. Not to mention what would happen if the Albish jumped in."

I was still a little bitter that the Federation's occupation of Joseon had drawn Albish ire when they had so blithely dismissed the threat that the Rus posed to central Europe. At least, though, the Allied Kingdom had started to look at the Russy Federation as a potential threat. Now, though, their focus would be drawn away from the far east for a good long while.

"Certainly, in a worst case scenario where the Allied Kingdom, Francois Republic, and Russy Federation all joined hands," General Lergen allowed, "the military situation would be quite challenging."

"Don't forget the Unified States. They may trade with us, but they have blood ties with Albion," I said. "There's no guarantee they'll stand aside if we were somehow to get the upper hand over the Allied Kingdom."

"Surely such a massive alliance would be too unwieldy to wage war together," Zettour said.

"Maybe," I allowed. Insisting any further would make me sound like a paranoid crank, which was the last thing the country needed right now. "Anyways, don't just casually toss around words like 'worst case scenario.'"

General Lergen nodded, and the room fell silent. I stared at the map for a moment, considering what would happen if our army was bogged down on the road to Parisee when the Red Army came crashing in from the east. Not a pretty picture. I'd probably survive, thanks to the Type 99, but I'd hate for my legacy to be opening Europe up to communist domination.

I sighed. "What happens if the Francois are allowed to operate unimpeded?"

"Muzzioli will control the country in short order," General Lergen said. "If the democratic forces fall back to stave off the Francois, he can follow along behind and pressure their flanks. If they stay where they are, the Francois forces will cut them off from resupply and attack from the rear."

As I'd expected. It was too much to expect the northern forces to hold off half of their countrymen and a foreign invasion all at once. Watching Ildoa fall to Muzzioli would be less devastating than being run over directly by communists, but a small disaster was still a disaster nonetheless.

"Can we talk the Akinese into taking another poke at the Federation? Or the Francois colonies, for that matter?" I asked. Any forces the Akinese kept busy were forces that couldn't invade us.

"I'm afraid they're struggling to feed their population, let alone start a war," Zettour replied.

"What?"

I had kept track of the overall course of the second Russo-Akinese war, of course, but I hadn't paid close attention to the developments in the Akitsushima Empire afterwards. Part of it was that I was busy, but a larger part was that I didn't want to be dragged into a front row seat as a group of idiots dragged the analogue of my birth country into a series of disastrous wars. To now hear that the Akinese would turn down a chance to fight suggested that history had gone off script.

As Foreign Minister Zettour proceeded to explain, things had indeed changed. After the disastrous war on the mainland, the leaders of the largest Akitsushiman army group had gone before the Emperor and offered to commit suicide. A handy trick to earn instant forgiveness if you were a vital part of the war machine, as the Emperor insisted that you continue to fight for the cause. Not such a good trick once you were surplus to requirements, as it turned out. The Emperor had told them to go ahead and do it.

I liked this Emperor already.

That initial feeling was only reinforced when Zettour explained that the Emperor had used the shockwaves generated by that act to dislodge the military from its position of power. He had reinstated democratic reforms that had been shoved aside for the sake of expediency during the war and disavowed any interest in foreign conquest.

Unfortunately, the Emperor's own grip on power was looking a bit shaky these days. With the loss of the mainland territory, Akitsushima's food production had been hit hard. Couple that with the massive loss of able bodied men and the large scale evacuation to the home islands, and they were looking at a very hungry winter. The Akinese had run their foreign credit into the ground during the war, so buying on foreign markets wasn't an option.

There were rumblings of food riots on the horizon. In the worst case, they could be looking at civil war or a military junta running things by this time next year. In any event, as Zettour had said, they were in no place to pick any kind of fight right now.

If the Albish were determined to be useless, and the Akinese were useless by circumstance, then we'd need to figure out a decent option for ourselves. Invading the Francois Republic was out. Just letting Ildoa fall was also no good. If we could maintain a defensive line in Ildoa, we should be able to keep enough troops free to defend ourselves if needed. Not that it would be great to be in that kind of stalemate, but at least it wouldn't be a complete disaster. Of course, the Albish would get pissy with us if we started digging our troops into place in Ildoa for the long haul.

I looked over the map, searching for inspiration. My eyes caught on the northeastern area of Ildoa, the territory that had briefly been governed by the Empire. Reaching out, I tapped on the spot on the map.

"What's public opinion like here, these days? What's the proper name for the region now, anyway?"

Zettour looked a bit surprised by the question. He took a moment to gather his thoughts.

"That's Carinthia. If anything, they're feeling nostalgic," he said. "The Empire largely left them to their own devices. Ildoa has been pushing Ildoazation, and Muzzioli has promised to push even harder. They've been more enthusiastic than most in volunteering for our side's army."

There might be some potential there. Not for a good option, exactly, but for something less bad.

"Hmm," I said. "Let's preserve some flexibility for now. Prepare two expeditionary groups. Station one on our border with Ildoa and one on our border with the Francois."

"On the border of the demilitarized zone?" General Lergen asked.

Naturally, General Lergen was opposed to half measures. However, I wanted this to be a negotiation, not a war. Engaging in some gradual escalation would give us something to bargain away when the time came.

"No, on the border," I said. "I know, if we truly wanted to take Parisee we wouldn't give them so much warning, but I'm hoping it won't come to that. Oh, where are our ships?"

There was a trace of reluctance in General Lergen's eyes, but after a moment he nodded. Looking down, his eyes traced over the map as he thought over my question.

"Four destroyers are on a goodwill tour to America. They should be arriving at the Unified States shortly," he said. "The bulk of the rest of the fleet is on exercise in the Baltic."

"Good, good. That should be fine. Make sure to recall any ships that are near Francois waters," I said, before turning to Mr. Klohse, our Minister of Finance. Given the situation, talk of the army had naturally dominated the meeting, but a nation doesn't run on military strategy alone. "Now, if we do go to war, how are our finances?"

"We can support the current army on combat operations indefinitely. If there is a general mobilization, we will be on something of a time limit," he replied without hesitation. The question had to have been on his mind for a while. "One year is no problem, but two will mean tightening our belts. Any longer and we'll have to get creative. It will be easier to get creative if the sea lanes are open, of course."

That was about what I had expected. I could only hope that the Albish speaking nations would at least send us financial subsidies if we did get dragged into an unending war against the communists on their behalf.

"All right," I said. "Has the rationing plan been updated since people started buying so many cars?"

Rationing gasoline wouldn't be popular, but the military's needs would have to come first.

"I believe so, yes," he replied.

As expected. I wanted to make sure he was on top of things, but it would border on micromanaging if I pushed for too much more detailed information.

"Good. Make sure it's ready to go," I said. "I don't want a war, but the Francois may not leave us much choice. If matters escalate, I want to hit the ground running."

"Yes, chancellor," he said.

"Also, let's go ahead and top off our stockpiles of oil and grain from America. Expand them as much as is practical," I said. "I don't think General Lergen will ever complain about having too much oil or food on hand."

My understanding was that we usually kept a reasonable reserve, but if things went south this could be our last chance to top off our stockpile for a while. It should still be reasonably safe. Even if we did get dragged into a war, the Francois shouldn't be willing to sink American shipping right off the bat.

Klohse nodded.

"While we're at it, let's buy food in America to ship to the Akitsushima Empire," I said. "Have our destroyers meet the shipment on their west coast and escort it on its way."

That brought a look of surprise to Klohse's face. "Buy food for the Akinese? How much?"

"Enough to take the edge off of their food crisis. They've helped us out by fighting the Russy Federation for so long. It would be a pity for them to fall apart as a result," I joked. As if feelings like gratitude had anything to do with international politics. Unfortunately, everybody was too on edge at the prospect of imminent war to even offer me the usual courtesy chuckle. I cleared my throat and continued. "Also, a stable Akitsushima is at least a latent threat to the Federation. If they fall into a civil war the Federation could strip its eastern garrison completely bare and throw them at us. I'd rather spend money now than lives later."

That brought nods from around the table as my cabinet realized that I didn't intend to sacrifice national self-interest on the altar of feelings.

"Make sure the food is packed in crates appropriate to be handed out to families," I continued. "Throw some chocolate in there. And get somebody to do up some propaganda singing the praises of our relationship."

There was no point letting an opportunity to score goodwill go to waste. Even if we were acting out of mercenary motives, we should still try to pick up every possible scrap of credit for handing out free food.

Klohse nodded in agreement, jotting down a note to himself. I turned my attention to Zettour.

"We need more from the Albish. They're the ones who can really nip this in the bud. Press them for concrete commitments. If the ambassador would rather talk to me, I'll make myself available," I said. "Everybody else, I think that's enough for now. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

Everybody had their plates full with the incipient crisis, so the room emptied quickly. I actually had a bit of free time as I waited for other people to report back, which nicely allowed for my important after-meeting meeting once Visha, Elya, and I were the only ones left in the room.

I caught Elya's eye. "Let's talk about Carinthia."

"We have some people there," she said. "It's more or less as Minister Zettour described it."

She had obviously been expecting me to bring up the topic since I'd mentioned it earlier. It was a comfort to have such a reliable subordinate.

"Are there any militant independence groups?" I asked.

I hadn't heard of any, but it was, after all, the Balkans. It would be strange if nobody was trying to kill anybody else.

"Not really," she said. "The people with that sort of personality mostly signed up for the northern army."

Just my luck. I couldn't even really get mad at Being X, if he had in fact arranged such a suspiciously tranquil situation.

"We'll need to start our own, then," I said. "Try to convince any locals who sign up that it's a long-established group."

It was a tall order to spring something like this on Elya with such a short deadline. On the other hand, we didn't really need to fool everybody with this one. It was more that we needed to give people an excuse to look the other way if they were already so inclined.

"You want me to organize a group to resist the Francois occupation?" she asked.

"No, no, I need a group who can take over a radio station in the next day or two and announce a general uprising for a free Carinthia," I said. "The Albish promised war if we marched our troops into Ildoa. If we limit ourselves to occupying independent Carinthia, we're technically outside of their ultimatum."

Of course, this was only the tiniest fig leaf of an excuse. Assuming that the Albish were looking for an excuse to wash their hands of any responsibility for Ildoa, though, it would be enough. The Carinthian region was a rugged area that should be relatively easy to fortify. It would offer a safe haven to the free Ildoan army, and would give us a convenient toehold south of the Alps in the event that war looked like a better option for us in the future.

I hated giving up on the rest of Ildoa, but sometimes you had to make the best of a bad situation.

"I see," she said. "That should be simple enough."

"Good. Make sure they know to wait for authorization before declaring independence," I said. "If the Albish assert themselves, this should all blow over without us even needing to do anything."

ooOoo

The Albish did not seem prepared to assert themselves. I got that impression from the look of frustration on Zettour's face as he escorted the Albish ambassador into my office shortly after lunch. It was only reinforced by the sheepish look of Mr. Lloyd's body language. I hoped that I was misreading the situation.

"Mr. Lloyd, thank you for coming. As the Americans would say, let's get down to brass tacks," I said. "The Francois are marching east as we speak."

"We've tried to get them to stop," he said.

"Yes, but you haven't tried very hard," I said. "Why do you pay for that wonderful navy if not for moments like this?"

Albion had been using its navy to bully continental powers for centuries. It was irritating that they had suddenly developed cold feet right when I needed them to bully my neighbor.

"If the Francois continue their intransigence," he said, "we will respond appropriately. No options have been ruled out at this time."

I sighed. I could respect a good bit of diplomatic doublespeak, but there was a time and place for everything.

"Even if you aren't willing to enforce a total blockade," I said, "you could at least cut off the raw materials that the communists are shipping over. Russy-flagged shipping isn't that hard to pick out."

He looked surprised, though it was hard to tell if the expression was genuine. "We would have to investigate that sort of allegation before taking action, of course."

"Of course. Look, if you want to be the puppet masters of Europe," I said, "you need to tug on the string when somebody goes off script like this."

He didn't say anything, and I waved apologetically. There was no point in venting my frustration on a professional diplomat. As a last resort, I decided to try sincerity.

"I understand your concerns and preferences. I find your aspirations for a peaceful solution to be admirable. But I really need some specific answers, here," I said. "Do you intend to do anything to kick the frogs out of Ildoa? If I go down there to clean up your mess, what will you do? Will you at least help out if the Russy Federation decides to jump in?"

"I can't make the kind of specific commitment you're looking for," he said.

"Then talk to someone who can," I replied. "Would Albion ever tolerate a hostile country installing a dictator on your border?"

I stood to escort him out of the room. His wishy-washy answers shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was still irritating. All the more so since I suspected, push come to shove, his government would still step in to bail out de Lugo if his gambit went sour on him.

"Monsieur de Lugo has sent his army to deliver a shit sandwich to my doorstep," I said. "I do hope somebody in Londinium at least thinks things over before you decide whether you're going to force me to eat it."

In some ways I would have preferred implacable hostility to this kind of vacillation. Our country would have been worse off, of course, but at least I would have had full information when it came time to make important decisions. If the Albish continued to delay making a decision, I was going to have to take a chance and do something proactive.

ooOoo

My final task of the day was to reassure my countrymen. As I knew all too well, if left to their own devices amid rumors of a Francois military rampage, they were liable to form up into independent brigades and start marching towards Parisee. As always, I would need to channel that energy in a constructive, peaceful direction.

This would be my first use of the public broadcasting system. The speech would also be carried on the radio, but most of the country at least lived within driving distance of a television, so plenty of people would be watching me on screen. It would have been a scary thought if I couldn't draw on future knowledge of good television presentation habits. And, of course, if I hadn't spent so much time under artillery fire.

The process of getting made up for television was quite an ordeal. I just tried to think of it as donning armor for a new arena. Fortunately, the whole process of arranging the use of the studio and planning out my appearance went smoothly. One of the perks of owning the station, I supposed.

The studio lights were blinding, and must have raised the temperature by a good ten degrees. I'd fought battles in the sweltering heat of the desert, though. I did my best to draw on that experience and put the discomfort to the back of my mind. As the presenter in the other room introduced me and a studio aide counted down the seconds until I was on air, I fixed the camera with a steady, serious look.

He reached a silent zero just as the light over the camera came on.

"My fellow Germanians," I said. "Early this morning I received reports that the armed forces of the Francois Republic have invaded the Kingdom of Ildoa. Their stated purpose is to crush the democratic faction in the Ildoan civil war and to install Muzzioli as a dictator."

I was seated behind a desk. Next to me was an easel holding up a white-painted plank of wood. It had taken some doing to find the right size to be readily visible on a twelve inch screen, but now I just had to make the map to scale.

Drawing on the Type-99, I projected a map of Ildoa on the blank screen. It was divided at the Arno, with a green area above and a red area below. A red arrow appeared on the border with the Francois Republic before lengthening to thrust into Ildoa. It split into a rain of red lines that gradually filled the green area of Ildoa until the whole country was colored red.

Usually, I would say something at this point about how awful Muzzioli was as a person and how we couldn't risk leaving him in charge of Ildoa, especially given his new status as a Francois puppet. However, considering the strong chance that the circumstances would force me to accept Muzzioli's takeover whether I wanted to or not, I skipped over that bit. I liked to keep at least a few months between blustering defiance and meek acquiescence.

"We are not at war. I repeat, the Germanian Republic is not at war at this time," I said. "The actions of the Francois have shocked the world. Not only is their invasion an affront to the norms of civilized behavior, it is also a breach of the solemn promise they made in Amstreldam less than a year ago. It is my hope that in the face of a rebuke from the decent people of the world, the Francois will come to their senses and back down without any further blood being shed."

Of course, if the Francois were inclined to be reasonable, then they never would have launched this invasion in the first place. Or, rather, if they had reasoned out that they could tip the war firmly in Muzzioli's favor before the Allied Kingdom stepped up to do anything about it, creating a fait accompli, they were probably right. I could only do so much to try and prod the Albish into action, and stumbling into a second Great War against multiple enemies would be suicidal.

Naturally, I couldn't share such pessimistic predictions on live television, but I could start work on my own political self-preservation.

"Out of an abundance of caution, we will be increasing our military readiness. All soldiers currently on leave are expected to report to their units as soon as possible. We will be heightening the security of our borders for the duration of this crisis," I said. "While I hope that the Francois will behave reasonably, I certainly do not intend to allow them to launch yet another surprise invasion. Anybody who steps onto Germanian soil with hostile intent will find only death waiting for them here."

The map of Ildoa shifted to a map of the border between our country and the Francois Republic. The thin black line of the border thickened to several times its original size. When a red arrow from the Francois Republic tried to invade, it bounced off, drooping pitifully as it proved ineffectual. An overly simplified view of border defense, of course, but then this was meant for a television audience.

One of the most important skills for a politician to develop was the ability to manage expectations. On the surface, my statement seemed like bellicose red meat, certain to rile up the voters. Underneath the violent rhetoric, though, I was defining success to be as easy to achieve as possible. Rather than promising a free Ildoa, now I would be successful on my own terms if I could just keep invaders out of Germania.

"The situation is fluid, and negotiations are continuing at the highest level," I said. "As events develop, I myself or another government representative will continue to keep you informed. As always, our mission is to secure the safety and prosperity of the Germanian people."

Sending somebody else out to deliver bad news and suffer the brunt of the mob's anger would be a cowardly act of self-preservation. In other words, it would be right up my alley.

It might not come to that, though. I should stay positive. For all I knew, I could wake up tomorrow to find the whole situation resolved without any effort on my part. It was possible. I had a feeling, though, that it wasn't the right way to bet.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Stirring up ethnic tensions in the Balkans is a great way to change out your current problems for a new, more exciting set of problems._


	36. Chapter 36

ooOoo

 _September 3, 1940_

The next morning did not start off on a high note. The Francois ambassador continued to do nothing but parrot the party line that the Francois Republic was acting to restore the legitimate ruler of Ildoa to power after the rebels committed atrocities on Francois soil. The Albish ambassador, likewise, seemed not to have gotten any useful instructions from the home office. Or any instructions to be useful, at least.

"I'm afraid that we simply cannot answer hypothetical questions," Mr. Lloyd said. "As new events arise, the Allied Kingdom will evaluate the overall situation before preparing an appropriate response."

He had been in my office for some time now, using a great many words to say very little. It was clear that I wasn't going to get any sort of concrete commitment out of him. Not today.

In a way, I could understand where they were coming from. Waiting for a problem to go away was a highly energy efficient method of problem solving. They weren't the ones who would be stuck with Muzzioli as a neighbor. Even if he did try to give them trouble, the Albish fleet could cripple the Ildoan economy pretty much at will.

Ildoa was dependent on maritime trade just to keep its people fed, let alone fuel what passed for their industry. The Francois Republic was similar, if less obviously so. This little bit of adventurism wouldn't change the fact that the Allied Kingdom had the whip hand in their relationship.

It didn't seem like a great idea to me to allow this kind of aggressive military action to be rewarded, but the Allied Kingdom was entitled to make their own calculations. Of course, so was I.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Lloyd," I said, standing to show him out. "I'll await your sternly worded letter with bated breath."

Elya had watched the entire conversation with an amused look on her face. Once I had seen Mr. Lloyd off and returned to my desk, I huffed in frustration and spun around once in my chair before giving her a look.

"How's everything on your end?"

"We can take over a radio station at any time," she said, before flipping open her notebook. "However, fabricating evidence of the longstanding existence of the Carinthian People's Front will be tricky."

"Just do your best," I said. In the end, people who wanted to believe would believe, and people who didn't want to believe wouldn't believe. Our evidence only needed to be a little bit plausible. "We should kick off the uprising as soon as possible. Waiting won't do us any good."

"All right," she said, nodding cheerfully before turning to walk out the door.

I watched her go with mixed feelings. On one hand, it was nice to have such a capable subordinate. On the other hand, I wasn't sure if it was such a great idea to have her practice forming a terrorist group. Well, it was a fake terrorist group. And in the end, it was for the good of Germania. It probably wouldn't be a problem.

ooOoo

For once, everything went according to plan. Late in the evening, I had a spring in my step as I swept into the conference room where my cabinet was waiting. While the situation was still, objectively speaking, worse than it had been a mere two days ago, at least I had a plan. Everything was better when you had a plan.

"Gentlemen. And Visha. Thank you for coming," I said, approaching the large table that dominated the room. I took a roll of paper from under my arm and flipped my wrist, laying out an oversized map of Northern Ildoa for everybody to see. "The Allied Kingdom seems content to dither over the situation from afar. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that their hesitation would end as soon as we got into a scrap with the Francois."

Right now, the Francois were obviously the bad guys. They had sent troops to invade their neighbor, and had done so in violation of their own promise and the Albish ultimatum. Not to mention the sternly worded letter.

The minute I sent troops into Ildoa, though, I would be descending from the moral high ground. The new situation would be just like any old war between two powers over their neighbor's land. The question of who started it would fall by the wayside in favor of the far more important question of which side it would be in the Allied Kingdom's interest to support.

It would be even worse if we were to go straight after Parisee. Absurd as it sounded, the Allied Kingdom might even make me out to be some kind of warmonger. Even I had to admit that such an act would echo the Empire's decision to launch a full scale invasion of Legadonia following a single border violation.

In either case, I doubted the Allied Kingdom would jump into the war right away. However, I was fairly confident that they wouldn't let us win. Mr. Lloyd had never even hinted at the idea that the Allied Kingdom would be amenable to having us enforce their ultimatum on their behalf.

"And, of course, if we get bogged down in a long, destructive war, we have to worry about the commies stabbing us in the back," I continued. "Fortunately, there's good news. Mr. Zettour, if you would?"

He cleared his throat. "Early this afternoon, a group calling itself the Carinthian People's Front announced that they are leading a popular uprising to establish an independent Carinthia. They invite anybody who will oppose Muzzioli and the Francois to join them in their struggle for freedom. The announcement was repeated several times on major radio stations."

Most of the cabinet just stared blankly at him. General Lergen at least seemed to be thinking through the possibilities.

"Well, I don't think anybody loves freedom more than the good people of Germania," I said, before drawing a red felt tipped pen from my pocket. I drew on the map in front of us, following the rough outlines of disputed Ildoa from my memory. Once I was done, I labeled the new area 'Carinthia.' "General Lergen, I'll be troubling you to send our southern expeditionary force to secure Carinthia against any possible invasion."

He looked at the map, frowning in thought. As expected, he wasn't happy taking half a loaf. "Chancellor, this..."

"It is a small portion of Ildoa, I'll admit. However, Albion is just too likely to stick its nose in if we fight for the whole thing," I said. "If we limit ourselves to operations in an independent Carinthia, though, that gives them the excuse they need to stay on the sidelines."

"Very well. At least it's good defensive terrain," he said, sounding resigned. Well, he could enjoy himself drawing up invasion plans for the rest of Ildoa once things settled down.

"Good. Make sure to build up stout fortifications that the locals can use. We won't be there forever," I said, before turning to Zettour. "That reminds me. We should tell our Ildoan friends and our volunteer forces to begin withdrawing to Carinthia."

"Pulling back our volunteers won't be a problem," he said. "I'm not sure how the Ildoans will feel about the situation."

Ildoans did have a certain romantic bent to them at times. I shouldn't have been surprised that some of them would balk at the idea of retreat. Well, if they wanted to kill some Francois soldiers in a doomed last stand, it was no skin off my nose.

"Tell them that we respect their choice and admire the sacrifices they've made for their cause," I said, "but if they want the protection of Germanian arms and the support of Germanian logistics, it awaits them in Carinthia."

He nodded. I looked around the room, making sure that everybody was paying attention.

"Once the army is in place and Carinthia is de facto independent," I said, "the real test will begin. Or, I suppose, you could consider it a practice assignment."

Everybody looked a bit confused at that. It seemed the situation called for some showmanship. I flung out a hand dramatically.

"The communists are still out there, gentlemen," I said. "We're never going to beat them if we can't cut the Russy Federation down to size. As with anything else, practice makes perfect."

Just because I didn't want to spark a second Great War right now didn't mean that I intended to stay at peace with the Russy Federation forever. Even setting aside my own intentions, the commies didn't seem likely to let me enjoy a peaceful life for much longer.

I leaned forward and tapped my finger on the Carinthian nation that I had drawn on the map.

"We won't be able to bully them with our army. Not in the long term," I said. The Albish would shut anything like that down all too quickly. "But Carinthia is a small country, carved out of a poor country. Our aim should be to shape their economy, culture, and politics so that they behave how we want."

The cabinet members looked at each other for a moment. It seemed they weren't quite sure where I was going with this.

"We could offer generous loans," Mr. Klohse eventually suggested, "then threaten to cut off the money if they step out of line."

That was about the level of suggestion I had been expecting. The Empire, after all, had thought that "soft power" meant offering an ultimatum instead of jumping right to an invasion.

"Honestly, I might give that a passing grade, but only barely," I replied. "Ideally they should come to believe that what's good for us is good for them, so that doing what we want feels like their own idea."

Keeping a nation in line by threatening them with bankruptcy was less disastrous than keeping them in line with the threat of invasion, but not by much. It created nearly as much resentment, and it stopped working if the country you were threatening ever grew prosperous. Or if another nation came along to pick up the tab.

"Direct investment certainly will play a role. Technical advisers. Military advisers. But it goes beyond that," I said. "Newspapers, radio, movies, television. If we try to force them to become Germanian, they will rebel. If we make it seem like fun, they'll do it themselves."

I'd been pleasantly surprised to discover that Germania had a reasonably successful domestic movie industry. Unfortunately, the dominant styles weren't really to my taste, but the movie studios seemed to do well enough. It helped that these days the oceans provided at least a little bit of protection from Hollywood.

Eventually, the Americans would wash all of our cultural efforts away in a tide of blue jeans and rock and roll. Still, we could benefit in the meantime from exerting ourselves. Especially when our competition was in the form of petty tyrants and communists.

"An interesting idea," Zettour said.

"While the overall initiative will be directed by a team in Minister Zettour's office, I want everybody to pitch in on this," I said. "At the very least, submit ideas, but I would like to see some cross-departmental staffing as well."

The meritocratic legacy of the Empire was usually a positive, but it could sometimes lead to overspecialization and an aversion to risk taking. I was hoping I could shake things up a bit and promote the development of some new ideas. I'd make sure to check in on them from time to time in order to make sure they didn't go too crazy.

"This will be a challenge, but I'm confident we will succeed," I said. "After all, if we can't bend Carinthia to our will, we'll never be able to do anything with Kieva."

ooOoo

 _September 13, 1940_

The army was able to move down into Carinthia without much fuss. The Northern Ildoans saw us as their allies, after all. There was a bit of confusion when our troops said they were there to safeguard a free Carinthia, but once they explained that they were there to fight against the Francois army, the locals were happy to get out of the way and let them get on with it.

The locals did not seem to be particularly gung ho for Carinthian independence. Elya did report a steady trickle of recruits, helpful in making the Carinthian People's Front at least look like a real organization when viewed from afar, but overall the people in the area seemed to prefer a sort of wait and see attitude. That started to change as the Francois smashed their way down the Po Valley. An army that's five hundred miles away could be ignored. An army that covered half that distance in less than a week tended to focus the mind.

The performance of the Francois army was impressive. No two ways about it. Although the main army of the free Ildoans was fighting in the south, they did have some reserves back in the north. It was their home territory, after all. They also had some fortifications from the early days of the civil war that they were able to use to anchor quickly-built defensive lines facing west. None of it mattered.

Several hundred tanks were front and center as the armored spearhead leading the charge for the Francois. They rolled right over many of the improvised barriers, barely slowing down. When they were faced with a more formidable obstacle, it would soon be swarmed under by a massive wave of Francois mages. The infantry was largely relegated to clean up duty.

The rapid advance meant that the Francois captured a lot of Ildoan rolling stock and was able to use it over relatively intact train tracks. This in turn let them keep the pace up even as they moved deeper into Ildoan territory. It was the living embodiment of General Lergen's theory of a lightning war. He must have been terribly frustrated to see somebody else get the credit for using the idea first.

Whether motivated by General Lergen's ire or the usual sense of professionalism, the Germanian army worked quickly as well. Our army corps of engineers had learned from the construction efforts at the World Cup, and kept a decent quantity of useful precast concrete on hand. Naturally, they could also supply molds to the concrete factories, so that those initial stocks were supplemented by a steady flow of new material rolling south to meet our army on the new border. Dragon's teeth, barbed wire, mines, and easy-build pillboxes soon guarded every conceivable road that a tank could use to drive into Carinthia.

The border guard force was equipped with a disproportionate amount of anti tank and anti air guns. They also had four of our seven mage battalions. Honestly, it was a little nerve-wracking. With our other three mage battalions tasked to the border with the Francois Republic, our heartland was nearly bereft of magical forces. Not that any enemy mages should have a chance to reach us without passing through the areas protected by our mages, but it still felt very uncomfortable.

We also shifted aircraft into Carinthia as we were able to rig up provisional air bases for them. The Francois hard largely left their airplanes at home, most likely to simplify their logistical issues, so to be useful our aircraft would have to get relatively low and attack their ground units. Not an easy mission in the face of their great mass of mages, but it would be better to have the option and not need to use it than to need it and not have it.

The last of the first round of border defenses were up within a week of our arrival in the country. That was more or less when the free Ildoan army began to trickle into Carinthia. In the long run, we would have to integrate them into the border defenses. For now, though, we just made sure to provide temporary barracks so they would have a place to stay. With all the fighting they'd been doing, most of them were happy to take a break.

The first Francois units reached the border two days later. It was actually that first contact that had brought Elya to my office with a report.

"News from the front," she said, waving an envelope triumphantly. "A Francois mage battalion tried conducting a reconnaissance in force. The Second Aerial Mage Battalion wiped them out."

"Wiped them out?" I echoed, surprised, as I took the envelope from her.

I expected our mages to be better, one on one, than the Francois forces. They had better orbs and better training. Still, it was rare for an aerial battle to end in a complete wipeout. Mages were too tough, and too mobile. Especially in a battle that started at numerical parity. The Francois mages must have gotten overconfident after two weeks of easy advances and done something stupid.

I pulled out the report and gave it a quick read. As I did, I could feel my eyebrows climbing higher and higher at the sheer waste of human resources.

It seemed the Francois battalion had been integrated, racially, though this was hardly a sign of social progress. Instead of being organized into platoons and companies, it seemed that each Francois mage had been given command of between three and eight African mages. The Francois mages had performed largely as expected: they showed notable improvement since the last war, but still fell well short of our standard. The Africans, though, had turned in a dire performance. They were barely able to break a hundred miles per hour, struggled to maneuver at all, and seemed to be pushed to their limit just to hold up a shield and fly at the same time.

The Francois mages used their African companions something like ablative armor. They would fire from behind their subordinates' shields and didn't hesitate to send the Africans forward to buy time while they escaped. Such tricks were useless before well trained mages wielding the Type 99, of course. In the end, our forty mages were up against six mediocre opponents and thirty practice targets.

"Elya," I asked, "how much mathematical education do the Francois give to their colonial subjects in Africa?"

She laughed, until she realized I was serious. "Counting, addition and subtraction. Perhaps multiplication, if the teacher really takes a shine to them."

I shook my head and passed the report back over to her. "Take a look at this."

Magical combat demanded a fairly solid background in mathematics. One of the reasons I had never run into another pre-teen soldier was that it was rare for somebody so young to master the math needed to fly and fight. The Empire didn't draft mages until they were old enough that such mathematical proficiency could be presumed. The choice I had faced was to enlist as soon as possible in order to obtain a posting at the rear or to wait and hope the war was over before I was old enough to be drafted. I still thought I had made the right choice, if not for Being X's meddling.

Anyways, if you took somebody with A or B class potential but no mathematical knowledge whatsoever and put him through a crash course on magical combat, the result would look a lot like what was described in that report. It seemed the Francois had resorted to desperate measures in order to bulk out their magical forces. It had a certain logic to it. Even a poorly trained mage was essentially a super soldier when it came to storming fortifications, especially when you brought a big group of them together.

Still, the long term cost was staggering. A well trained aerial mage was not the most destructive component of a nation's military force, but it was probably the most valuable. Almost anything the army wanted to do was easier with aerial mages along. To throw that future potential away in pursuit of a temporary advantage was short-sighted in the extreme.

"Hmm," Elya said. "Suddenly, fighting a thousand mages doesn't seem so bad."

"We probably ought to take out as many of them as we can now, so the Francois don't have time to train them to a higher standard," I said. "I'm not sure we can, though, not without invading Ildoa."

Taking out hundreds of half-baked mages now would mean that we didn't have to face hundreds of front line mages in the future. I felt a little bad about it, but I wasn't the one who had decided to throw unprepared soldiers onto the battlefield. The tricky part would be doing it while maintaining the moral high ground from the Albish perspective.

"Well, we might not have to worry about them getting too much training," Elya replied. "After all, the Francois want to keep the whip hand over their colonies when all is said and done."

I would have liked to find comfort in Elya's reasoning, but her theory would only hold true as long as the Francois thought they could have their cake and eat it, too. In a war of survival they would be willing to give up on their colonies and do everything they could to kill our soldiers. Well, I could shove this problem off on somebody else for the moment.

"Let's see what General Lergen thinks," I said. "I have to tug on his leash sometimes to hold him back, but I don't intend to meddle while troops are in the field."

"All right," she said, taking a note. "There was one other thing."

"Oh?"

"It's about the recruiting for the Carinthian People's Front," she said, sounding slightly sheepish.

"I thought you already had enough people?"

As far as I had known, we already had an organization that would withstand casual scrutiny from foreign intelligence agencies. It wouldn't withstand serious scrutiny, but that was never the goal.

"The problem is the other way around," she said. "Way too many people want to join. We can only fit so many people in a covert army. I had a few ideas for you to consider."

"Is one a new political party?" I asked. She replied with a nod. "That should be the way to go. They need to get organized politically, anyway. Send the normal people to the political party and keep the crazies occupied with busywork for their covert army."

It was a time honored tradition for this kind of people's movement to have a public face and a covert arm. The political party would, of course, deny all ties to the violent extremists of the Carinthian People's Front, but everybody would pretty much know the score. It would be good to have a safe place for the well-adjusted patriots to go to in order to express their support for a free Carinthia without forcing them to rub elbows with the nutjobs who wanted to participate in politics by shooting people.

The strategy wasn't that different from my initial plan for the Germanian Workers' Party in terms of trying to isolate the crazy people. This time I was pretty sure it would work out, since the lunatics would be sequestered into an actual terrorist group instead of a real political party.

"All right," Elya said. She took a few notes and headed back to her desk.

Less than an hour later, Elya came running back into my office.

"The Francois want to talk!" she said. "They've asked for a peace conference with the Allied Kingdom acting as a mediator."

They'd grabbed everything they could and now they wanted peace. It was a cheap trick. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to call them out on it. Looked like we wouldn't get the chance to whittle down their mages after all.

I was heartened by the fact that the Albish would be mediating. The Francois probably wanted to put the fix in by having their buddies in the role of an ostensibly neutral third party, but I was happy for anything that put distance between the Francois Republic and the Allied Kingdom. I was still irritated that Ildoa had been snatched right out from under my nose, but if the end result was to move the Allied Kingdom into an alliance with us, or even genuine neutrality, that would be quite a consolation prize.

ooOoo

 _September 20, 1940_

The peace conference would be held in Londinium. Unlike the last conference on the fate of Ildoa, this time the attendees would be diplomats rather than political leaders. We were quite close to all out war, after all, so for me or de Lugo to leave our countries would be unthinkable. Accordingly, I sent Foreign Minister Zettour over with a strict set of instructions. Our bottom line was our bottom line, but otherwise he was to be generous in trading away our negotiating points. The important thing was to look like the most reasonable person in the room.

I had faith that he would do a good job. He had always been a calm, rational man, even as the Great War became increasingly desperate. He would be a fine representative of our country on the international stage.

Diplomacy took time to work itself out, though, especially in major matters like this. In the meantime, I had work of my own to do. The first big project was to ramp up our military production. We couldn't order a full mobilization, as that was tantamount to a declaration of war. However, I had a strong feeling that the Francois Republic wasn't looking for a lasting peace, but for more of a cease fire while it consolidated its gains. Therefore, it behooved us to do as much as we could to prepare for war to come within a year or so.

We were in a decent spot to ramp up production. The latest production fighter, the Funke-Wuertz 190, had finally had the kinks worked out and had started rolling off the assembly lines last month. According to General von Richtoffer, it was an excellent fighter aircraft that could also be kitted out as a decent dive bomber or ground attack plane. He was optimistic that it could remain the mainstay of our air force until we reached the jet era.

On the army side of things, the fifty ton tank was also starting to enter service. It only accounted for five percent of our tank fleet at the moment, but the army was confident that it was better than any tank our enemies would have in service for the next year or so and would at least remain a viable platform for another two years after that.

General Lergen had also settled on a standard truck design two years ago, so our motor park was down to about twenty different models of truck in active use. All the new ones were the same, at least. As far as I was concerned, we'd always be able to find a use for more trucks. Moving people, moving anti-aircraft guns, moving whatever needed moving. We weren't particularly close to a horseless army, but I wanted to keep moving in that direction.

With two cutting edge designs recently entering production, our assembly lines were of course running flat out. With the looming war, though, I had no compunction about signing off on the creation of several brand new assembly lines. I also made sure to introduce Anton Ehrlich to the army's logistics department. The man had been going a bit stir crazy once the People's Car assembly line had reached a steady, efficient state, and I thought he could provide some insight on the mass production of military equipment.

One general did suggest that we stop producing the People's Car in order to focus on military production, but I shut that idea down. As long as we could buy steel on the world market, we'd just be hurting ourselves by cutting production of the People's Car. We made a profit on every unit, after all. We'd also seen a major increase in orders from the Unified States since the World Cup. This would be a terrible time to cut production. We needed to make as much money as possible before the fad finally faded away.

The other major preparatory move came in the form of recruitment. Most notably of pilots, but more generally the military would start hiring anybody who showed any interest in a specialization that required a heavy training commitment. When war came we'd have to expand our army from four hundred thousand men to four million. Basic infantry could be trained up quickly, but there were a lot of little things that needed doing that could only be done by somebody with real training. Having those people in place ahead of time would help the army expansion go much more smoothly.

A more minor matter, but near and dear to my heart, was the formation of the Magical Civil Defense Corps. Made up of Great War veterans and any A or B class mages who were unable or unwilling to go through the Academy, it was an all volunteer force that would bolster our magical defenses. They went through a basic two week introductory training and monthly weekend refreshers, and were issued whatever orb they were most comfortable using. They'd never be used to capture any enemy positions, but in the case of war they'd give us the depth of magical defense that had been sorely lacking during the Ildoan crisis.

The last personal project came to me one afternoon in the form of a courier from the Foreign Ministry. Elya had taken a few days off to go down to Carinthia and sort out her projects down there, so I was handling my own mail. I took the envelope the courier was offering, giving him a questioning look in return.

"This is the plan for the food shipments to the Akitsushima Dominion," he said. "As well as a sample of the propaganda that will be included."

I opened it up and took a look. Only years of political experience kept me from giving a visible wince. In fairness, it wasn't the worst translation that I'd ever seen. If we'd had the Internet, though, it definitely would have become a meme.

Also, the whole thing was one big block of text. They'd at least included a picture of the Germanian flag at the top, but the average Akinese citizen was only going to give this thing a quick glance before they threw it away.

"Ah, I actually know somebody who should look this over," I said. "They might have some suggestions."

"We had a leading scholar at the University of Berun draft the message," he replied. Apparently he wasn't just a messenger boy.

"Even so, the Chancellor's office does have access to some special resources," I said.

That seemed to remind him of the status difference between us, as he snapped almost to attention. "As you say, Chancellor."

With that, he left the room. I took another look at the propaganda leaflet and sighed. Then I took a look at the food loadout. That... was a lot of wheat flour. That was probably the cheapest and easiest to transport form of calories available. Still, I wasn't completely sure that the average Akinese citizen would know what to do with it. I certainly wouldn't.

I stood and walked over to the door leading to Visha's office. Peeking inside revealed that she was buried in paperwork. She had taken on the task of managing most of the political fallout from recent events. She had done a good job, but it looked like it was taking a toll on her, judging by the bags under her eyes. I just watched her work for a moment, wondering if I should interrupt. The choice was taken from me when she looked up and realized I was there.

"Ah," she said, surprised. "Chancellor. Can I help you?"

"I wanted to get a copy of the recipe for those dumplings you made last night," I said, "but I don't want to impose."

"No, no," she said. "I could use the break. Yesterday was semmelknödel, so the recipe is easy."

With that, she pulled out a blank sheet of paper and started to write. I had expected her to pull out a cookbook to give to me, but it seemed she had the recipe memorized. I might have been making her cook too often. Really, though, specialization of labor was a basic tenet of a capitalist society. She cooked, I washed the dishes, and we both enjoyed a more efficient evening together.

She didn't take long to finish. I took the recipe from her and looked it over, only to stop on the first ingredient: bread crumbs. "Ah, could I get a recipe for bread as well?"

"Oh, are you cooking tonight?" she asked, sounding slightly alarmed.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "What if I am?"

She let the question linger and focused on writing out the recipe. Once again, it didn't take long for her to finish. She cleared her throat as she handed it over.

"Um, I just remembered," she said, "I'm having dinner with Weiss to talk about some changes to the training program, so I might be home a little late."

Rather than dignify that with a response, I looked over the recipes I had in hand. Seeing ingredients that would either be in the food delivery or should be readily available locally, I nodded, satisfied. Looking up, I saw that Visha still had an apologetic expression on her face. I just clicked my tongue, shook my head, and left the room.

Honestly, I had lived alone as a bachelor for years. I was perfectly capable of preparing delicious food. It wasn't my fault that this stupid world didn't have cup noodles yet.

I packed up and let the girl at the front desk know that I would be out for the rest of the day. That done, I headed outside and walked around for a while in downtown Berun before finding a secluded area and applying a magical disguise. I then had to be a little bit sneaky to make it back to the Chancellor's residence. That ought to be enough to establish that the Chancellor had gone out to visit her mysterious Akinese contact.

Eventually, I made it to my room and sat in front of a small table. Laid out before me was a blank sheet of paper and some tools that I hadn't had cause to use in some time. Pencils, a ruler, an eraser, and a fine tip pen. Hopefully this would be like riding a bike.

Like most Japanese boys, I had gone through a phase when I thought I would grow up to become a mangaka. Like almost all of those japanese boys, it had only taken me a few months to realize that such a dream was extremely unlikely to come true, and I had turned my efforts towards more fruitful pursuits. The only real evidence of that whimsical phase back in my old world was in the quality of my doodling during long meetings.

Fortunately, the 4-koma format was basically foolproof, and any idiot could make chibi characters look all right. I used the ruler to draw four boxes down the right hand side and then tapped on the table for a moment while I thought. On the one hand, this was still a battle hardened empire that had lost a war, but was by no means ready to give up on earning respect in the world through military might. On the other hand, we were about three generations away from anime body pillows becoming a big seller among their descendants.

Obviously, I would have to meet the Akinese halfway. Still, I was confident that the appeal of cuteness was universal.

First panel, a young man in a yukata wearing a conveniently labeled headband—I almost forgot to go with aki and tsu on either side of the sun, which would have been embarrassing—was menaced by a group of shadowy figures. The thugs were all wearing stereotypical fur hats and were also decorated with a hammer and sickle. Despite being surrounded, the young man obviously has no intention to back down.

Second panel, the young man was in a hospital bed. I could admit that my drawing of the cast and bandages was a little muddled, but I thought I did a good job with the rig holding his leg off the bed. He was looking up towards the window in alarm, as a sound effect indicated that somebody was breaking in.

Third panel, his childhood friend took a pratfall into the room and hopped to her feet. Why was his childhood friend obviously Caucasian? Why was she wearing a Germanian military uniform, complete with a flag patch on her arm? I would have to answer that question the same way that a professional mangaka would: it doesn't matter as long as she's cute.

In the fourth panel, she was serving him a home cooked meal. She apologized for not bringing more food, but reassured him that he's strong and will be back on his feet soon, feeling better than ever.

Once I finished with the pencils, I looked it over with a critical eye. Honestly, it was a bunch of broad cliches brought together, but that was probably for the best. Certainly, even somebody who was only picking out one word in four would be able to get the gist of the message. I tried to clean up the lines a little bit as I inked over it.

With the right half of the page full, most of the work was done. Translating Visha's recipes was straightforward, and they easily fit on the left half of the page. I did get to exercise a bit of creativity in decorating the recipes with doodles of Germania-chan. At the beginning, in a lecture pose. Later on, mixing ingredients. Finally, presenting the finished product, so they'd have some idea what it should look like.

Did Germania-chan have a visible canine tooth? Please, as if I would leave any visual cliche unexplored.

Admittedly, the whole thing was far from an inspired work. But at least it wouldn't be a complete embarrassment.

ooOoo


	37. Chapter 37

ooOoo

 _October 8, 1940_

In the end, Zettour was able to get us a decent bargain. Germania was required to withdraw our troops from Carinthia and to draw back from our border with the Francois, re-creating the demilitarized zone. We also reaffirmed our recognition of the standing prohibition against acquiring former Imperial territory. In exchange, the Allied Kingdom and Francois Republic recognized our right to sign military alliances with any country of our choosing.

By marching our troops around and engaging in a bit of saber rattling, we had secured genuine diplomatic gains. As usual, in a world of appeasement it paid to be the bully.

The Francois Republic, with its more aggressive saber rattling, reaped even great rewards. Like us, they agreed to withdraw their troops behind their own borders. Much like our withdrawal from Carinthia, their pullback from Ildoa was rendered meaningless by the fact that they had already accomplished their goal. Muzzioli's troops were firmly in control of the country.

We did manage to secure a promise that a new Ildoan election be called, with polling places to be audited by a Waldstatter law firm, but I wasn't getting my hopes up. The election wouldn't be held until mid-December, ostensibly to give time to campaign, but in reality giving Muzzioli time to secure a firm grip on power.

There was no obvious method to punish any election fraud that took place. Judging by Muzzioli's history, the mere presence of a neutral observer wasn't going to be enough to put him on good behavior. I still intended to have Elya send some covert observation teams so that we could at least cause Muzzioli some public embarrassment by publicizing any egregious evidence of election fraud, but that was an easy thing for a would-be dictator to wave aside.

The final agreement to come out of this latest conference of Londinium was that Carinthian independence was recognized, subject to the proviso that a plebiscite be held to confirm the population's opinion on the matter. That was of course a good thing for us, as it provided a safe haven for the free Ildoan army and a convenient launching point for an invasion of Ildoa, should matters progress in that direction. Unfortunately, it made my current meeting with Luigi Falasca rather troublesome.

The subject never come up in any etiquette book that I'd ever read, but I suspected that it was considered something of a faux pas to break off a chunk of your ally's nation and declare it an independent state.

I did my best to ignore the awkward atmosphere and offered him a friendly smile as Elya escorted him into my office. "Thank you so much for coming."

"How could I refuse?"

He did seem a bit upset. Hopefully most of it was anger at the Francois for their meddling instead of at me for my wishy washy response. He composed himself before taking a seat. We were facing each other across a small table near one of the windows in my office, which offered a rather dreary view of Berun in fall.

"I wanted to talk to you in person," I said, "about where we go from here."

Foreign Minister Zettour, who had been studying a map tacked up on the opposite wall, walked over to join us, briefcase in hand. Reaching inside, he pulled out a thin sheaf of papers and slid them across the table to Falasca as he took a seat by my side.

"We expect that the Central European Treaty Organization will be formally established by this time next week," Zettour said. "I believe you will be most interested in Articles 1 and 5 and in the organizing document for the defense committee."

Up until the conclusion of the latest conference of Londinium, our only formal alliance had been with Dacia. We had been restricted to implicit understandings with former Imperial states that we would come to their aid in the case of a communist invasion. While they could draw some comfort from our promises, that kind of informal cooperation was limited in how closely we could work together. It would have been very difficult to conduct coordinated military operations, especially when it came time to go on the attack.

I had, naturally, drawn inspiration from the anti-communist alliances from my own world, but the core commitments were fairly straightforward. First, each signee agreed not to declare war without prior consultation with and approval from Germania. Second, each signee agreed to treat an attack on any member of OZEV as an attack on all. Third, and most importantly, each signee agreed to assign their forces to an integrated OZEV command in the event of war.

General Lergen had a lot of organizational work ahead of him. It would be worth it in the end, though, if we could direct our ally's forces around the battlefield with anything like the efficiency with which we commanded our own troops.

"This is the Empire in all but name," Falasca said.

"It is an agreement between sovereign states," Zettour replied. "Intended to deter foreign aggression."

"It also includes Dacia," I added.

It annoyed me when people suggested that the other former Imperial states simply agreed to what I asked out of misplace nostalgia or hero worship. The need for a smaller country to team up with others in order to protect itself from larger countries was universal, and I was confident that the deal we were offering was enough to entice participation even from states that had a rocky history with the Empire, as Dacia's approval showed.

The ultimate goal, of course, was to lure the Allied Kingdom on board. Well, the real set-for-life super jackpot would be for the Unified States to sign on, but they were too firmly isolationist to even consider such a commitment. The Albish were invested in preserving the peace in Europe. I hoped that presenting them with a clear framework for coordinated effort, rather than a motley ad hoc collection of individual armies, would help sell them on the idea. We needed a heavy hitter like the Allied Kingdom on our side if we were going to take on three major powers at once.

"Yes, yes," Falasca said, double checking a few pages, "all united under Germanian command."

"Naturally," Zettour said, "Germania retains a level of influence commensurate to its contribution to the cause."

"Should you win the coming election," I said, "we would be happy to discuss any provisions that leave you reluctant to sign on."

I was already planning to hand the controls over to the Albish, so making concessions to the Ildoans would hardly hurt. We all knew it was unlikely that I would have to follow through, though. Personally, I thought it was more likely that Muzzioli would breach his promise of safe conduct and simply assassinate Falasca than it was that he would give Falasca a fair chance to win. Even so, I hoped that the intent got through.

"And otherwise?" Falasca asked, getting to the point.

"We all admire the fight that your free Ildoans have put up in opposing Muzzioli's tyrrany. If not for the foreign invasion, you would have won," I said. "It was a valiant effort."

"Unfortunately," Zettour said, his timing as always impeccable in the role of the bad cop, "valor alone will not put food in the belly nor money in the pocket."

Much of the free Ildoan army would melt away after the election, however fraudulent. Even a tyrant like Muzzioli would pursue at least a superficial attempt at reconciliation. And most people didn't have the stomach to stay at war when they had the option of a safe, peaceful life ahead of them. Still, the diehards that remained would be useful. Assuming that the Francois dragged the Ildoans into war with us, being able to bring an Ildoan army of any kind along with our invading forces would, at the very least, make for much easier relations with the locals.

In order to preserve a useful tool, I was willing to make some reasonable expenditures. In order to make sure that they remained a useful tool and not a liability, though, I needed to make the situation clear.

"We will be happy to support your men, so that you're ready to fight against Muzzioli when the time comes," I said. "Provided that you agree to abide by the tenets of OZEV. Nominally, your army would be treated as a supplemental Carinthian force."

Considering that we had just agreed to abide by the election results in Ildoa, it wouldn't do to maintain an Ildoan rebel army as an official member of our alliance. Judging by the expression on his face, Falasca didn't appreciate the need for subtlety.

"It was bad enough to have Ildoan soil cleaved from our nation," he said, "but to fight under their flag? It's a travesty."

"If you found sheltering in Carinthia so distasteful," Zettour replied, "you could always have fought the invading army on your own."

I held up my hand to forestall Falasca's response. "As I said, I admire the fight that you've put up so far."

They had done a great job to ramp up from a small military with a strong industrial base to a genuinely strong fighting force. I'd count myself lucky if our inevitable military expansion went half so well. They'd been done in by a dirty trick from the Republic of the Francois. But, admiring somebody or recognizing they'd been unlucky only went so far.

"However, I am not willing to jump headfirst into a second Great War in order to press your cause," I continued. "If you don't like the terms on which our support is offered, you are more than welcome to shop around for a better deal."

I held his gaze for a long moment. Two months ago, he would have had any number of sponsors lining up to earn favor with the next Ildoan government. Now that he had been cast down from the precipice of victory to become the champion of a lost cause, though, he was looking at much slimmer pickings.

"As for Carinthia," I said, "you'll have a chance to make your case to them once you control Ildoa. Let's focus on one problem at a time."

In the end, there wasn't anything he could do but agree. Honestly, I thought that his reluctance to part with Carinthia was a little irrational. Ildoa had controlled the area for less than a decade. After reading the initial reports from our cultural ambassadors, I wasn't sure why anybody would want to rule over the place.

ooOoo

 _October 11, 1940_

My next meeting with a foreign representative was on the Friday at the end of the same week, and was far more cordial. After all this time, Mr. Johnson and I had a certain understanding of each other. I didn't stand on formality as I welcomed him to my office, leading him to a table that already held his water and my coffee.

As was my habit with the plain-spoken American, I got straight to business. "You're probably aware of our recent efforts to provide food to the Akinese."

The purchase and shipping had proceeded smoothly, although the requirement to pack everything into single-family sized crates had been something of a bottleneck. The last I had heard, the freighters delivering the food should have set off for Akitsushima within the last day or two. Keeping such a large purchase secret would have been impossible, not that we had any intention of hiding what we were doing.

Mr. Johnson nodded.

"Surprised some folks when you bought all that food," he said, "and then shipped it west."

The Americans liked to think of the oceans as impenetrable barriers between themselves and the problems of the rest of the world. It was only natural that they avoided thinking about how modern strategic planning needed to take into account a vast web of commitments and possibilities that stretched around the globe. In this case, though, the link between the Akitsushiman Empire and Germanian interests was really rather straightforward.

"Well, they were badly hurt by fighting the communists," I said. "It would be a shame to see a country ruined for doing the right thing."

He just gave me a skeptical look while humming in the affirmative. As expected, a professional diplomat, even an American, wouldn't be taken in by such sentimental nonsense.

"And, of course," I said, pausing to take a sip of my coffee, "a stable Akitsushima Dominion can keep ten or twenty division of the red army tied up on their east coast."

"You're still on about the commies?" he asked. "The Francois Republic just rolled through Ildoa like they were taking a holiday drive."

Americans no doubt benefited from their ability to stay out of European squabbles, but it did lead to a certain inability to look past the surface of geopolitical events. To be fair, it was naturally the nation whose survival was at stake that would best be able to distinguish between a rival and a mortal enemy.

"The recent conflict has Secretary Jugashvili's fingerprints all over it," I said. "He wishes to set our capitalist democracies against each other and create opportunities to expand his evil empire."

That earned me another skeptical look. I kept forgetting just how blase the Unified States could be when it came to the threat posed by the Russy Federation.

"Ah, never mind," I said, shaking my head. "I invited you here to see if you could be persuaded to help with the Akinese relief efforts."

He leaned back, exhaling heavily. "Well, that's gonna be a tall order."

"You wouldn't have to match our spending," I said. "Even organizing and encouraging private efforts would be a great help."

It would be foolish to think that we could inspire others to chip in merely by example. If the Unified States government, though, made an effort to promote the cause, at least some citizens would answer the call.

"Sure," he said, "but we have our own hungry mouths to feed."

One of the many deficiencies of the current era was that there was no readily available network of international charities. Most people tended to look after their own. Not that there was anything wrong with that, except that it made it much harder for me to convince people to spend their hard earned money sending food to the far east.

Really, though, for the Unified States to plead poverty was a bit much. I kept a weather eye on their economy. It was down from its highs, sure, and people were tightening their belts, but they weren't to the point of actual starvation. The whole thing was a far cry from Germania's worst days. Especially if you looked at the government instead of the people. They had kept their budget far below the level of spending that their tax base would permit if they were to treat the situation as a genuine emergency.

"You can't do both?" I asked. "Look, for you, feeding the Akinese isn't just charity, it's an investment."

"Oh?" he said.

Much as I might envy the Unified States's spending power, that wasn't the point. The point was to convince them that spending that money the way I wanted them to was in their own best interest.

"They're in a bad spot right now, but the Akinese are a productive people," I said. "They've also just lost control of a great deal of farmland. They'll be importing food for some time to come."

The current Akinese crisis had arisen because of the confluence of exhausting their available credit and a sudden food shortage. In time, they would work their way back into a reasonable fiscal situation, but the food shortage was structural. Short of something crazy like starting another round with the Federation or a hopeless invasion of Jiuzhou, the Akinese would always remain a net food importer. Normally, I would have liked to take advantage of such an insight to turn a profit for myself, but unfortunately Germania didn't even produce enough to feed itself, let alone to cash in on such a distant opportunity.

Mr. Johnston did not look convinced. "Once they have the money they'll just buy rice and fish."

"They're in the habit of eating what's close at hand," I said. "But delivering a free sample while they're starving is a good start on changing their habits."

Hungry people will eat whatever's put in front of them. Poor people will buy whatever food is cheap. Over time, people will adjust their diets to match what the market provides.

"Maybe," he allowed.

"It's an odd thing, to be troubled that your farmers are too productive," I said. "Akitsushima won't solve your oversupply problem by itself any more than Germania could, but if you keep opening new markets, it will add up over time."

The price of wheat on the open market had been dropping for some time. This was largely to Germania's benefit, but there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. If prices fell too far, then farmers would stop growing so much wheat. Then it only took one bad drought and suddenly we'd be paying through the nose for food even without a tariff to drive up prices.

"Speaking of little favors," he said, "let's talk about the People's Car."

"What about it?" I asked. I had an idea of where he was going with this, but I decided to let him take the lead in the conversation.

"With as many as you're selling to America," he said, "isn't it about time you opened up a plant in the Unified States?"

As usual, he went straight to the point. With unemployment steadily rising, it was natural that he would want to bring jobs to America any way that he could.

"The People's Car company is majority owned by private shareholders," I said. "I don't control such decisions."

Even with all my years of political experience, I had a hard time keeping a straight face with that one. After a moment, I crumbled in the face of his obvious skepticism.

"I suppose I could exercise a certain amount of influence," I said. "I believe some planning has been done for future expansions, including to the Unified States, but they are still evaluating potential sites."

A large segment of the private shareholders were actually quite enthusiastic about such a move. The savings on shipping costs alone would be substantial, and based on the current sales figures we would be able to sell every car made in America on the American market. With the country's high unemployment, the company would have its pick of quality workers. At first glance, it was a golden opportunity.

I had put a hold on any such plans. The risk of investing in a massive expansion of production capabilities just as the interest in our little car died out was far too high. A plant in America wouldn't even be providing jobs to Germanian voters, so it needed to make money in order to justify its existence. On the other hand, if I could use such a plant to buy some political influence in America, perhaps it would be worth it. It would also be a relief to free myself from the grumbling of those ambitious shareholders.

"Upstate New Amstreldam is a great spot for the auto industry," Mr. Johnson said. "Plenty of people looking for work, and you're right on the main transport lines."

This time it was my turn to favor him with a skeptical look. He had the good grace to look sheepish, at least.

"It's also a state with a lot of electoral votes," he said. "In an election year, it's always nice to have good news to announce."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Hooper still thinks he might win?"

Honestly, President Hooper had struck me as a capable politician. Ultimately, though, to get reelected the average voter had to be happy with how things were going. Considering the hammer blows that the Americans' economy had been taking, it was hard to imagine anybody voting for the incumbent.

"He'd better," Mr. Johnson replied, "Otherwise, how am I going to tell my wife that we're moving back to Oklahoma?"

It had slipped my mind that a new President would mean a new set of ambassadors, as the new administration rewarded its supporters. I had never intended to remain in office long enough to worry about that kind of thing.

"Tell her you're putting an ocean between your family and the Russy Federation," I said, before waving him to silence before he could criticize my red-baiting. "All right, all right. A favor for a favor. You help feed the Akinese, and I'll see what I can do about the factory."

The bottom line was that I wanted the Russy Federation to have to watch their backs instead of devoting all of their efforts to march westward. If taking on a little financial risk would help me achieve that goal, it was well worth it. Besides, with a little luck the factory might manage to break even someday.

ooOoo

 _December 9, 1940_

Rosenvelt did end up winning the election. Voters during bad times wanted change more than anything else. The result wasn't the complete landslide I was expecting, but he did carry New Amstreldam in the end. I could only hope that he wouldn't hold the car factory against me.

The establishment of the Central European Treaty Organization also went more or less as expected. The public roll call included Germania, Pullska, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, and Dacia. Carinthia was a provisional member pending the results of its referendum on independence. As for secret members, that was only the free Ildoan army, so far. Every indication was that the coming election would be crooked as a barrel of fish hooks, as Mr. Johnson had once said, which would prevent them from openly joining up as Ildoa's government.

While I made a few attempts to start a discussion with the Allied Kingdom about joining our defensive alliance, my efforts never really got anywhere. The Albish newspapers were printing a bunch of nonsense about the Empire reborn, so its possible that the diplomatic corps didn't want to open talks until things settled down. I could understand their caution, but it left OZEV in a precarious position.

Our alliance sounded impressive when you listed off all of the countries involved, but if you totaled up the balance of military power it painted a less reassuring picture. We faced, at a minimum, a Franco-Ildoan-Russy alliance. In that war, Germania would be a fair match for the Francois Republic. The free Ildoans, Carinthians, Dacians, and Croatians together could probably go toe to toe with Muzzioli's Ildoa. That left Pullska, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia to take on the Russy Federation. Three on one, yes, but three middle schoolers didn't have much chance against a prize fighter.

And that wasn't even getting into the difficulty of forging so many nations' armies into a cohesive whole. Or the fact that our enemies easily had room for another minor power or two to join their alliance without creating any serious conflicts of interest. I could only hope that hostilities wouldn't kick off until we'd managed to pull some other major power into our own alliance.

Turning to happier news, the delivery of food relief to Akitsushima went about as well as I could have hoped. I had abused my authority to force my little doodle to take the place of the previous attempt at propaganada. Actually, the purpose of it was to avoid national embarrassment, so I should have said that I used my authority to force the switch. In any event, the food was delivered smoothly, as attested by a telegram we received from our ambassador relaying the gratitude of the Akinese. With the follow up delivery produced by Mr. Johnson's efforts, the Akinese looked set for a winter without civil unrest.

When the four destroyers who had escorted the shipment finally returned home, they came laden with gifts. The thank you note from the emperor was very impressive, and immediately set aside to be framed for some future museum. There were tea sets and the like as well, but what really caught my eye was an honest to goodness samurai era katana. The middle schooler in me really wanted to take that sucker out to a test range with the Type 99 and see what I could do to some armor plating. Ultimately, though, reason prevailed, and I just had Elya take down some notes on the sword's history for when it inevitably ended up on a wall somewhere.

The ships had also carried a more problematic sort of gift. Two battalions of Akinese aerial mages. I'd known they were coming long ahead of time, but they were still going to be a bit tricky to handle.

Seventy two mages represented a significant bump in our numbers, but that wasn't the whole story. Each of our existing battalions had been trained to a very high standard and used cutting edge equipment. The Akinese would be veterans, but they wouldn't have our training or our computation orbs. The military is a vast machine. Adding parts that didn't fit wouldn't necessarily help it to run better or accomplish more.

The best place for our guests would be in the Magical Civil Defense Corps. Those were already somewhat catch-as-catch-can, heterogeneous units. If they ever saw combat, any friendly rifle would be welcome. Problems of training and coordination were much less pressing in units that were meant to be entirely defensive. The tricky part would be in convincing these proud mages, part of their country's elite force, to take up back line duty without trampling all over their dignity and sense of pride.

Fortunately, I could delegate that kind of thing to Weiss. He planned out a training exercise for the coming weekend that would allow the Akinese to measure themselves against our new cadets, active battalions, and civil defense mages. We hoped the practical demonstration would lead them to draw the appropriate conclusions.

I was also able to secure a little personal bonus by dropping by to visit the Akinese mages during lunchtime. They had arrived the previous night and been put up in a hotel in central Berun near the embassy, which meant that a convenient conference room was readily available for our meeting. By arriving together with Weiss and Visha a few minutes early, I was able to slip into line and snag an onigiri from the pile that had been made available for the hungry mages. I was two bites deep and enjoying the taste of nostalgia when the Akinese ambassador caught up with us.

"Chancellor, if I'd known you were hungry," he said, "I could have had our chef prepare a more suitable meal."

"No need, I was just feeling peckish," I said. Taking a glance at my companions, I saw that Visha was halfway through hers while Weiss was still poking suspiciously at the seaweed wrapping. "Besides, this is pretty tasty. I might have to learn how to make it myself."

Visha started, then coughed as a bit of rice went down the wrong tube. I took another bite to hide my smile as she cleared her throat.

"No need to trouble yourself, Chancellor," she said. "I'm sure I can find the recipe and add it to our meal rotation."

"All right," I said. With that, both my primary and secondary missions had been accomplished. Now all that was left was to make a good impression on the Akinese.

The room around us was full of mages milling around as they ate. A small gap had formed around our little gathering, whether out of respect or out of a soldier's natural instinct to avoid the attention of politicians. Visha had gone back to eating, while Weiss gave what sounded like a happy grunt as he took his first bite and found it to his liking. The ambassador hovered uncertainly, looking a little wrong footed. I quickly polished off my onigiri and gave him a reassuring smile.

"Goch-" I said, before catching myself with a cough and clearing my throat. "Ambassador, let me thank you again for this magnificent gesture."

It really was remarkable to send such a force of aerial mages to a country that was not an official military ally. Though they were nominally here on a journey to spread understanding and goodwill between our nations, it had been made clear to me that they were fully prepared to fight with us in the event of war breaking out. I still wasn't quite ready to commit to an alliance with the Akitsushima Dominion until I was sure they'd gotten the military adventurism fully out of their system, but I did appreciate what they were doing.

Just like when I was serving in the military, I still adhered to the philosophy that the more mages between me and the enemy army, the better.

"It was the least we could do," he said, looking more comfortable as we exchanged platitudes. "Your gift pulled us out of the devil's kitchen."

"Ah, well, after rain falls, the ground hardens," I replied.

While Akitsushima was going through a rough patch now, they'd be much better off in the long run for abandoning the course that they had been on. My help simply smoothed the transition and made sure that they would continue to at least appear to be a viable threat to the Russy Federation.

"Now, is everybody here?" I asked. "I should probably get started soon."

While I was happy enough to make the trip here in order to take a culinary trip down memory lane, the ostensible purpose of my visit was to welcome the foreign mages to the country and tell them what they'd be doing. The ambassador nodded in response to my question and gestured for one of the men who had been standing a polite distance away to step forward.

"Ichiro will act as your translator."

I would have expected the ambassador to handle translation duties, with his excellent grasp of the language, but Ichiro did look to have a better set of lungs for belting out instructions to a big group of soldiers. I was a little curious where an Akinese aerial mage would have picked up Germanian. If I had to guess, I would say that Koenig probably had something to do with it.

I gave him a nod, then led our little group to the front of the room. I cleared my throat before hopping up onto an empty table.

"If I may have your attention. please."

Ichiro's translation was noticeably less polite. It did the job though, leaving me to address a neat row of seventy-odd mages standing at attention. Ah, it took me back.

"Welcome to Germania!"

Fortunately, Ichiro gave a more literal translation now that we had everybody's attention.

"We are happy to have you here as guests of our country. I know that it is a long way from home," I said, pausing to let Ichiro catch up, "but killing communists here won't be that different from what you're used to. Although the weather should be warmer."

I got some courtesy chuckles for that, which was probably about the best I could hope for. "In all seriousness, your visit here should be peaceful. We may quarrel with our neighbors, but war is always a last resort."

"Please take advantage of your time here to meet new people and try new things," I continued. "You can be part of a bridge between our peoples, to help find common ground and shrink the distance between us."

I paused again to let Ichiro finish his translation. Looking at the men, they were doing their best to maintain the usual stoic facade of a soldier, but I felt at least some cautious optimism that this mission would generate some genuine goodwill.

"Turning to practical matters. Please have your dress uniforms ready to go for Thursday evening," I said. "On Saturday, you'll need your combat gear. General Weiss will tell you what to expect."

With that, I dismounted the table and handed the meeting over to Weiss. It really was a lot like the old days. Only instead of throwing the men into trench warfare, we'd be parading them in front of television cameras and then taking them on a team building exercise.

At the end of the day, the soldiers would probably still grumble about as much as they always did. Still, it always made me happy when mages from different nations could come together in the spirit of friendly competition and mutual understanding, instead of just trying to murder each other.

For that matter, I preferred it when politicians could come together that way, too. It was too bad other foreign leaders weren't all as reasonable as I was.

ooOoo

 _AN2: OZEV is the Organisation des Zentraleuropäischen Vertrags, which is a slightly awkward and archaic formulation as I understand it from my consultation with some helpful German volunteers, but the North Atlantic Treaty Organization also sounds slightly awkward and old-fashioned, so I think it fits._


	38. Chapter 38

_AN: This is the first chapter written after consultation with an actual missile designer. Between my browser history from doing research for this fic and the subject lines in my private messages I'm probably on an FBI watch list by now._

ooOoo

 _December 25, 1940_

Bertrand Ribéry, the esteemed foreign minister of the Francois Republic, sat alone in a well-appointed conference room. He was perhaps the only person in the building, save for the unfortunate assistant that he had dragged into work on Christmas. And, eventually, his guest, if the man ever deigned to show up.

The opulent surroundings of the elegantly decorated room were small comfort as he stewed over the meeting to come. Outside, families were enjoying the crisp air and bright sunshine as they toured the Christmas market. Inside, his only companion was a stack of papers that he had already reviewed too many times. He was tempted to fetch out the bottle of brandy hidden away in one of the side cabinets, but he resisted the urge. He owed it to his country to be at his best whenever he was on the job, but particularly at a moment like this.

He'd been in favor of active intervention in Ildoa, back when the matter was under discussion. Germania and Ildoa simply couldn't be allowed to join hands and threaten the eastern border of the Republic. By drawing Ildoa firmly into their own orbit, they could clip the Devil's wings without having to depend on the increasingly unreliable Allied Kingdom. Certainly, it was a sin to break their promise to leave Ildoa to its own devices, but keeping the nation safe came before protecting its virtue.

For almost a month, it seemed that everything had gone as planned. Their man was placed firmly in control of Ildoa while the Devil sat on the sidelines, hardly daring to intervene. It wasn't until the Empire arose again in the guise of a supposed 'Treaty Organization' that Ribéry began to consider the invasion to be worse than a sin: a mistake.

With the bulk of the former Empire reunited under a single military command, Ildoa and the Francois Republic together were facing down a foe possessed of twice as many citizens and twice as much industry, not to mention twice the tax revenue to spend on the military. The success of the newly devised tactics of lightning warfare was heartening, and the elan of their troops quite admirable, but there was a limit as to what could be done in the face of such a stark numerical disadvantage.

Ribéry understood that they needed to change the numbers. That didn't mean that he liked the man that he had to work with to do it. Or the country he represented.

As if summoned by his thoughts, he heard footsteps approaching from the hallway. They echoed in the otherwise silent building. Soon his assistant appeared, leading Mikhail Ivanovich Molotov into the room.

For the representative of a massive revolutionary nation, Molotov cut a rather nondescript figure. Slight of build and shorter than average, he wore a charcoal grey suit and kept his mustache neatly trimmed. Despite his ordinary appearance, though, Ribéry still felt his hackles rise at the approach of his communist counterpart.

"I'd wish you a merry Christmas," Ribéry said, "if you weren't allergic to that sort of thing."

"Every day is a holy day," Molotov said, "for workers who enjoy the guiding hand of state socialism."

Every diplomat had the ability to lie with a straight face, of course. Molotov was still impressive for his ability to recite even the hoariest socialist slogans with a straight face. Ribéry had worked with the man enough to know that he had a sharp mind and held a sincere love of his country, but he still wasn't quite sure whether Molotov was a true believer in the revolution or simply played the part. Then again, anybody naive enough to betray visible signs of skepticism towards the socialist project would have been long since been purged by Secretary Jugashvili.

"You've word back from Moskva?"

Molotov chuckled, settling into a seat across the table. He set his briefcase down and undid the latch, pulling a stack of documents from inside. He looked them over for a moment, then looked up to meet Ribéry's eyes.

"You always kept us at arms length before," Molotov said. "Now you're eager to make a deal. I feel like the belle of the ball."

Ribéry had nothing to say in response. It was true that when they had first begun their cooperation, the Russy Federation had suggested an open alliance in order to discourage other nations from meddling in Ildoa. At that time, the general feeling within the government was that such a move would be too provocative. Moving troops into Ildoa was bad enough. Openly tying themselves to the revolutionary communist state would risk the Francois Republic itself becoming an international pariah. Unfortunately, the current situation didn't allow for such niceties.

Molotov didn't belabor the point. Instead, he picked a piece of paper out from the stack in front of him and laid it out on the table. It was a map of Central Europe, unremarkable except for the color coding that suggested future spheres of influence.

"In regard to the secret protocols," Molotov said, "we would prefer this dividing line."

The agreement they were negotiating was ostensibly a defensive alliance. It would yoke the Francois Republic, Russy Federation, Ildoa, and Yugoslavia together in case any of them were attacked by Germania, or any of the OZEV states. Of course, contemplating such a war necessarily entailed dividing the spoils afterward. It was impolite to put the result of such discussions out for public consumption, which was why the section of the agreement dealing with such things was contained in a secret supplemental protocol.

The initial proposal by the Francois Republic was fairly straightforward. The Russy Federation would govern the territories of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Dacia. Ildoa would be given Osterry and Carinthia. Yugoslavia would absorb Croatia. The Francois Republic and Russy Federation would divide Germania between them, with the Republic getting the lion's share. The border had been drawn at the Wakenitz river, proceeding more or less due south to meet up with the border of Czechoslovakia.

The modified map that Molotov just presented had kept to that division, for the most part. A line had been drawn through eastern Osterry from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, giving the Russy Federation a tidy semicircle of a border and, probably not coincidentally, control of Wien. Muzzioli wouldn't appreciate the change, but at this point he should be willing to take whatever he could get. Ribéry wouldn't lose any sleep over purchasing Russy approval at Ildoan expense.

The second change was harder to swallow. While the border within Germania still started at the Wakenitz, it bulged westward before curving back around to meet the Czechoslovakian border. If Ribéry remembered correctly, the new border followed the internal division of the Germanian states.

"Your Federation is quite hungry for territory," he commented.

"We're still leaving plenty of Germanians for you to boss around, no?" Molotov replied. "In exchange, we can increase our oil export quota."

Ribéry took a moment to think things over. It was true that even under the revised borders, the Francois Republic would have a great many Germanians to pacify. As confident as their generals might be when the subject was broached, it was still a tall order. And more oil would be quite welcome. The new methods of war gave impressive results, but it had turned the military into a thirsty beast.

Most importantly, he had been ordered to secure this deal by the end of the year by any means necessary. He had been prepared to concede much more than Molotov had asked for. Much as he might like to drive the hardest bargain he could, the risk of scuttling the deal altogether was too high.

"I do believe we can make this work."

Besides, they'd be receiving the oil now. The border adjustment wouldn't come into play for quite some time. In the event of war, the Russy Federation was powerful, but slow. If the Francois Republic happened to occupy the bulk of Germania while the Federation was still bogged down in the east, they could always reopen the negotiations from a more favorable position.

ooOoo

 _January 2, 1941_

The year ended on something of a down note. Carinthia did vote to remain independent, which was the one bit of good news. Muzzioli won his election, of course. We did collect quite a bit of evidence of fraud and submit it to the Waldstatters. If they did any work in the last two weeks of December, though, I never saw any evidence of it. In another week or two, I'd have to avail myself of the last resort of a loser: whining about unfairness to the press. With enough photographic evidence, we ought to at least be able to embarass Muzzioli and his new allies.

That was the more pressing problem as of the end of the year: the announcement of the Molotov-Ribéry pact establishing an allegedly defensive alliance between the Francois Republic, Russy Federation, Ildoa, and Yugoslavia. I wasn't surprised, of course. The Federation had been supporting the Republic for some time, and Yugoslavia and Ildoa had little choice but to obey their masters' orders. Still, it was ominous that they had gone public with a formal alliance. It was even more evidence that the Francois Republic soon intended to throw away all pretense and launch yet another invasion, this time for all the marbles.

Before, the public balance of power was far enough in OZEV's favor that even the most ardent warmonger in the Franco-Ildoan alliance would want peace. I, being a rational person, would never launch a war whose costs would exceed any possible gains. Therefore, it was a reasonably stable, peaceful situation, barring the wildcard of the Russy Federation.

Now, that wildcard has been tossed on the table. I was still confident that a war would prove too costly to the enemy alliance to be worthwhile, but their odds of winning were certainly high enough for an aggressive leader to want to roll the dice. It made me feel even more urgently that we needed to woo another heavy hitter to our side.

Unfortunately, the Albish remained unmoved by our diplomatic overtures. Their only public response to the rising tensions in Europe was to withdraw their lone mainland army division from Pullska. It was hard to see the act as anything but the Allied Kingdom giving up on imposing peace by force of arms.

As a matter of pure cold-blooded political calculation, they might well be best served by sitting out the slugging match that was fast approaching on the horizon. I had left it to Foreign Minister Zettour to figure out what sort of lure was needed to pull them out of their splendid isolation.

For myself, with war imminent, it behooved me to review our military preparations. I could look over the numbers from the comfort of my own office. In order to get a sense for how effective those forces would be, though, I wanted to take a look at the state of our weapons research and development in person. Especially for the navy and air force, much of their budget had been invested in weapons research, and much of their effectiveness would depend on the resulting weapons.

Accordingly, I began the year with a trip up to the Usedom Island research and testing facility together with General Lergen and the rest of the military's top brass. As I was traveling with a group, I had to take the train rather than fly. The trip wasn't that long, though, and it did provide a convenient chance to refresh myself on the basics of our situation.

Our army was up to roughly half a million soldiers. Given the disproportionate number of technical specialists, the need to garrison important fortifications, and the need for a sensible reserve, we could put a little more than half of them into the field as an effective force. That field army would boast almost five hundred tanks and a hundred armored personnel carriers, largely on the twenty-five ton P-25 platform. The fifty ton P-50 was being produced at a rate of ten per week, and Anton Ehrlich was doing everything he could to push that number higher. The smaller platform was still being built, but was largely being used as a base for personnel carriers and for experiments with tracked artillery and anti-aircraft guns.

The army would expand rapidly upon the declaration of war, of course, as the country drafted young men en masse. Turning draftees into soldiers took time, though, and in the face of a Francois invasion we would need to be able to at least stall them with the forces on hand.

The Francois Republic's army was up to three quarters of a million. We didn't think that they could afford to send an invasion force of more than three or four hundred thousand. It was always tricky to do that sort of analysis, but at the very least they only seemed to have equipped two or three hundred thousand of their troops with top of the line equipment. The Francois order of battle called for around a thousand tanks, though it was hard to say exactly how many units would find themselves over or under strength in the event of war.

Our army would be supported by an air force that was approaching two thousand planes. The bulk of them were still the Bf-109 fighters and Jo-87 dive bombers that Richtofer had demonstrated to me over eighteen months ago, but the newer Fw-190 were beginning to show up in decent numbers, with ten of them being produced every day. We also still maintained a wing of Jo-88 level bombers, even though they were an awkward fit for our aerial doctrine. For now we enjoyed a surfeit of pilots, though I doubted that would last as the war dragged on.

Our front line aerial mages still consisted of the seven mage battalions that had been available during the Ildoan crisis. Graduation from our aerial academy in June would give us one more battalion. Those cadets could be pressed into service early in an emergency, although doing so would likely stunt their development. Our preferred emergency option was the Civil Mage Defense Corps, which was up to twelve battalions scattered throughout the country, fourteen if one counted our Akinese guests. Ideally, those units would never see combat, but in a pinch they could at least prevent foreign mages from running rampant in our rear area.

The Francois Republic's air force fielded a dizzying array of planes. At least on paper. Our analysts weren't sure if it was all a front meant to deceive us, or if their requisition process was just all over the place. In any event, they were set up on paper to field around three thousand planes, although it was tough to tell how many they could actually put in the air. They also had over a thousand aerial mages available, as we had seen in Ildoa. As far as we could tell it wasn't much more than a thousand, at least.

Last, and definitely least, was the Germanian Navy. Much as I respected our sailors, I simply couldn't justify the kind of funding that would make them a dangerous force to be reckoned with. They had managed to squeeze twenty-eight destroyers into the construction budget they'd been given, as well as the aircraft carrier that served as their flagship. Another aircraft carrier had recently begun construction. While abandoning the project would be a waste, it was the last major construction project on the docket for the foreseeable future. Facing a formidable quartet of foes who could all reach us by land, any more investment in the navy was a luxury we couldn't afford.

At best, I hoped that we could make a nuisance of ourselves if the Francois Republic tried to impose a blockade, and largely deny the Russy Federation the use of the Baltic Sea. Win or lose, though, any impact on the war would be minimal.

In short, my effort to remain non-provocative and save money had left us behind the Francois Republic in raw numbers across the board. If they were at the starting line waiting for the race to start, we were about half a lap behind. Unfortunately, sprinting to catch up would certainly provoke war, so we were instead trying to jog casually to as close as we could get to their position before war kicked off. We needed at least a year to reach level ground with them, and a miracle to draw even with the Russy Federation.

After a train ride spent reviewing such depressing facts, I was hoping for some good news at the test site. Say what you want about Dr. Schugel—I certainly had—but the man had pushed forward the cutting edge of science. The men remaining in the government's employ should be capable of doing the same, ideally without the man's accompanying disregard for military practicality.

The first thing that I noticed as I got off the train was the cold. We were on the Baltic coast in the depths of winter, of course, but it was still a shock to the system. I was wearing a heavy wool overcoat, scarf, and fur cap, and the cold still cut right through me. I didn't waste any time before tapping into the Type 99 and casting a stealthy warming spell. Using a simple built in function like that wouldn't require any concentration to keep up. Or, at least, it would be less distracting than the cold it was warding off.

I was just resisting the urge to sag in comfort as the warming spell kicked in when our welcoming committee reached us. Dr. Max Kramer, the head researcher, and Otto Lutz, the site's administrator, gave only the briefest greeting that courtesy allowed before ushering us into a heated meeting room. Even if I had magically warded myself from the cold, I hardly scrupled at accepting the coffee offered to all of us as soon as we were inside.

Lutz kicked things off with a speech lauding my wisdom in funding his research facility, praising the various branches of the military for their interest and cooperation, and so on, and on, and on. Considering all of the big shots in the room, I could understand why he would start off with some fawning. Besides myself and General Lergen, we had also brought along Generals Gude and Groener from the general staff, General Ziegler from the army, Generals Weiss and von Richtoffer from the air force, and Admiral Albrecht from the navy. Flattery was to be expected.

Fortunately, even before I had entered the army I had long since mastered the ability to tune out meaningless prattle while appearing to pay close attention. Eventually, Lutz did come to the point and lay out our schedule of events. We'd start with a film review of recent large scale testing, then move to a lab to see a promising product that was still in development, and finally we'd head outside to watch a live demonstration.

The nature of the film we were to watch became clear as we filed into the theater and saw the torpedo up on blocks at the front of the room. At thirty feet long, it certainly looked impressive. Kramer walked to the front of the room and gave it an appreciative pat. I couldn't help but wince and hope that somebody had remembered to remove the warhead before they put this show together.

"The recent fleet exercise provided the occasion for the final live testing of the acoustic homing torpedo," he said. "Walter, if you would?"

Somewhat to my surprise, rather than a film projector starting up, a young man in a lab coat stepped forward and activated an illusion spell. It took me a moment to recognize what I was seeing on screen. We were looking down at the sea, which looked choppy but not dangerously so. A ship was in view that I recognized as one of our destroyers. On reflection, if they were taking aerial footage it would be much easier to use a mage instead of trying to book the use of a dirigible that was rigged for television.

Kramer filled the time as nothing much was happening by reciting the basic facts about the torpedo. Nothing had changed since the last time I had read the spec sheet. The torpedo could make fifty knots, sometimes a bit more, and had a maximum practical range of ten kilometers, though it could theoretically travel for fifteen or twenty. It delivered five hundred kilograms of explosives, certainly enough to ruin anybody's day.

On screen, a second ship came into view. It was hard to judge precisely, but it didn't seem to have the sleek lines of a military vessel. A moment later, I could see the splash as the destroyer let loose a torpedo.

"The tramp freighter has been set to full speed ahead and abandoned," Kramer said. "Note that if the torpedo were to run straight, it would miss completely."

Indeed, I didn't need to go up there with a protractor to confirm what he was saying. The destroyer had fired slightly behind where its target already was. Considering that the target was moving and the torpedo would take time to arrive, it was a certain miss. And yet, a few minutes later, a massive explosion erupted under the keel of the freighter. Not being built to military standards, it broke in half and slipped beneath the waves soon after.

"With this," Kramer said, "the torpedo can be expected to strike home from ten or even fifteen kilometers, allowing our destroyers to punch well above their weight class."

That last line raised a red flag. If our destroyers were more effective than their size suggested, then my whole plan of building a toothless navy to soothe the Allied Kingdom was in jeopardy. I cleared my throat, drawing Kramer's attention.

"Tell me," I said, "what is the firing range of the big guns on the latest Francois battleship."

"I couldn't say," he said. He looked a bit shifty. Perhaps he didn't want to say.

"Twenty-five kilometers," Admiral Albrecht said. "Possibly thirty."

I nodded. "Thank you."

That was a relief. While our destroyers would certainly be able to give the Francois Republic's navy a bloody nose if they were too careless or arrogant in imposing a blockade, they didn't pose any threat to the might of the Allied Kingdom. After all, a surface ship could hardly sneak up on its opponent out on the high seas. That meant that our destroyers would have to cover at least ten kilometers under punishing fire before they could even fire a torpedo at an enemy battleship.

I relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the presentation, which largely consisted of Admiral Albrecht peppering Kramer with questions about how the enemy could neutralize our tracking torpedoes. The gist of it, as I understood it, was that the torpedoes could be fooled quite easily by dragging a noisemaker behind the ship, once the enemy figured out that they needed to do it. For now, the solution was to limit the knowledge of the tracking capability as much as possible. For the future, they hoped to find a technological solution.

As far as I was concerned, this was all good news. The torpedoes would make for a useful surprise once or perhaps twice, but didn't remotely threaten to disturb the Albish stranglehold on naval supremacy.

Of course, the fact that our navy wouldn't be dragging us into war with the Allied Kingdom was nice, but it didn't do much to help us out of our current predicament. I had higher hopes for the second project. It had been described to us as a precision bombing device.

We filed out of the theater and followed Kramer to our next destination, which had the look of a working lab. A wind tunnel dominated one side of the room. A bomb was held in a horizontal position by a sling dangling from the top of the wind tunnel. Again, I could only hope that our scientists had thought to remove the explosives ahead of time.

The bomb looked different from most. A set of fins sprang out just behind the nose, and some kind of box kite apparatus was attached to the tail.

Rather than explain what was going on, Kramer had them start up the wind tunnel. Then he sat down in front of what looked to me to be an arcade joystick. The purpose became clear as he demonstrated how the joystick could be used to direct the bomb to swivel left or right, or tilt up or down. Finally, he shut down the wind tunnel and stood in front of us.

"Testing has shown that we can drop the bomb from six thousand meters and put five hundred kilos of armor piercing explosive within fifty meters of the target every time," Kramer said. "Half the time it's within twenty-five."

Lutz cleared his throat and stepped forward. "I should add that this project was made possible by joint funding from the navy and the air force."

"Oh?" I said, giving Admiral Albrecht a questioning look. I could understand why the air force would want better bombs, but I was surprised that the navy would spring for such a thing. The bomb looked a little too big to be carried by anything that could fly off of an aircraft carrier.

"We realized early on that we must coordinate our efforts with land-based planes in order to achieve our mission," Albrecht said. "We're happy to chip in some money in order to make sure that they have the right tool for the job."

Well, I was glad that everybody was getting along. I was a little disappointed that in this era a 'smart' bomb required direct human intervention, but it was still better than just letting the bomb fall where it may.

"How do you know where to steer it?" I asked. "Is there a television camera on the nose?"

"We're considering that for a future model," Kramer said, showing his political side by artfully avoiding the use of the word 'no.' "A flare in the tail of the bomb lights up on release. The bomb glides forward before dropping vertically. The bomber must slow down immediately after releasing the bomb. This allows the bombardier to look straight down on the target and guide the bomb in."

That was even more disappointing. I could appreciate the ingenuity of building a guided munition out of such primitive technology, but slowing down just as you flew over the target was just asking to be downed by anti-aircraft fire.

"It can't be radar guided?" I asked.

"It's possible, though difficult," Kramer said, "but we'd need a bigger plane or a smaller radar transmitter."

I frowned. I was pretty sure that somebody should have figured out airborne radar by now. I had been hoping it was us.

"What about laser guidance?"

Kramer gave me a blank look. "Laser?"

Whoops. I'd gotten too caught up in technical questions and forgotten the limitations of the day.

"Coherent light. I might have the terminology wrong, but somebody is working on it in a lab somewhere," I said. "There's a magical shortcut. Here."

I held up my hand and pulled up an old spell modification. Soon a red dot appeared on the wall. I'd started fiddling around with lasers way back when I first learned that mages could project light under their own power. Unfortunately, it just wasn't practical to pump enough energy in to really hurt somebody with it. I had considered using it to blind the enemy, but honestly, whenever I was close enough to get somebody in the eyes with a laser pointer, I was usually close enough to shoot them.

"An illusion?" Kramer asked.

"It's a modified flashlight. All one color, and the beam doesn't spread," I said. I waved my hand around, moving the dot around as cat owners would be doing in another few decades. "If somebody is in place to paint the target, then the bomb wouldn't need a video transmitter or human control. It would just need to track the dot."

"That's... possible," Kramer said. "It would require further research."

"Chancellor," von Richtoffer said, "while further development would be valuable, I believe that the weapon is already good enough to be quite valuable. It would allow us to hit ships, railroads, and bridges much more efficiently."

"Hmm," I said. Well, as they said, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. "Is this ready for deployment in the field?"

"It will be soon," Kramer promised.

I would have to trust von Richtoffer's judgment. It was his funding that would be wasted if he was wrong, even if the navy was covering part of the cost. Even if the technology wasn't particularly impressive, perhaps he would make good use of it.

I knew I'd been tying our researcher's hands by asking to see only the technology that was ready or nearly ready for deployment, but the technology on display had still been disappointing so far. I still held out hope that the last stop on our tour would show off something that could really turn the tide of battle.

As the last demonstration would be a live fire test, we would be watching from an observation bunker. We didn't really need the protection from any explosives, but the protection from the cold was welcome.

"Finally, I give you our newly created air-to-air missile!" Kramer announced. He had an assistant hand out binoculars and directed us where to watch.

An old biplane soon came into view, flying out over the water. As it entered the testing zone the pilot hopped out and flew off under his own power. The biplane kept going, the controls apparently lashed in place for level flight.

A moment later, one of our Bf-109 fighters came roaring into the test zone. I only had a moment to notice something was strange about its silhouette before two streaks of fire leapt forth from beneath its wings. I followed their movement with the binoculars, only to find an expanding fireball as what was left of the biplane went splashing down into the water.

After a moment, I realized what was bothering me. It didn't seem like both missiles could have hit the plane. In a moment of optimism, I jumped to the happiest possible conclusion. "You finished the proximity fuse?"

"As expected, you have sharp eyes, Chancellor," Lutz said. "With a twelve kilogram warhead, the missile is lethal as long as it comes within twelve meters of the target."

The proximity fuse turned aerial explosives from a roll of the dice into near certain death, or at least danger. As a mage, I had dreaded the moment that anti-air shells would be fitted with the technology. It had been used to devastating effect in my own world's history, and I had always thought that it would be the technology that drove mages from the air. Fortunately, it turned out to have higher technology requirements than I had feared, and even at the end of the war anti-aircraft gunners were left trying to guess the right altitude for their airburst shells instead of just aiming and firing.

With the prospect of such fearsome technology falling into our hands, I couldn't help the smile that broke out on my face.

"With this," I said, "our artillery and anti-aircraft guns will be much more effective!"

It wasn't just aerial forces that had to fear a proximity fused shell. Artillery that reliably exploded a few feet in the air was far more lethal to infantry than artillery that exploded on impact.

"Ah, the fuse only works for rocket powered projectiles," Kramer said. "The extreme forces in an artillery shell are too much for the delicate inner workings."

It was a reasonable failing, but I still couldn't help but droop with disappointment. I cheered myself with the thought that I had forgotten to ask about the other half of the demonstration.

"Oh, I forgot to ask, how are the missiles tracking the target?"

"The inner workings of the proximity fuse are a bit complicated to explain, but-" Kramer began, before I interrupted.

"No, I mean, how do they maneuver to hit the enemy?" I asked.

"Oh," he said, glancing from side to side before finally giving me a straight answer. "They don't."

Again, I couldn't help but sigh.

"Radar tracking would require an airborne radar, while manual steering would be too difficult for a fighter pilot to manage by himself," Kramer explained. "We have tested heat-seeking technology, but it has proven impractical so far."

"You would need to shoot from behind," von Richtoffer added, "but the planes maneuver like crap with the missile tubes attached."

"Oh," I said. "I guess I got carried away."

"This still greatly strengthens our fighter planes," von Richtoffer said. "It gives them a chance to take out the enemy from beyond gun range. Once the missiles have been fired, they drop the launch tubes and dogfight as usual."

For a moment there I had thought I was witnessing the weapon that would secure our dominance of the skies. To find out that instead it would merely provide an incremental improvement in our airplane's performance was disappointing. Still, it was better than nothing.

"I suppose," I said.

"It's also useful for ground attacks," von Richtoffer said.

"The air to air missile can be fired at the ground in a pinch," Kramer said. "We have also developed dedicated anti-armor and anti-personnel rockets for air-to-ground work."

I kept my focus on the commander of my air force. "You're going to want a lot of these, aren't you?"

He nodded. "The Bf-109 can carry two at a time, while the Fw-190 can manage four. We'll go through quite a few for training, and then we'll want a stockpile that won't impede our pace of operations."

"Is this ready for mass production?"

Kramer looked like he was about to say something, but Lutz silenced him with a hand on his shoulder. The two looked at each other for a moment before the scientist yielded the floor to the administrator.

"The rocket, certainly," Lutz said. "However, the proximity fuse requires specially made miniature vacuum tubes. Establishing mass production locally will take a month or two. If you want us to start sooner, we would have to order from the Americans."

I nodded, then turned to General Lergen. "Talk to Zettour and get the purchase done. We don't have time to waste."

Making a purchase like that might tip our hand as to the sort of research that we were doing, but that would happen anyways once we used the weapons in battle. Under the pressure that we were facing, two months of delay could be fatal. Fortunately, the American economy was in a place where they shouldn't be too picky about accepting orders from abroad.

The final demonstration was the simplest. Based on our debriefing of our volunteer forces in Ildoa, their most pressing need was for an infantry weapon that could take out a tank. Our research and development group had responded with a one-shot recoilless gun firing an explosive warhead. It could severely damage an armored target from up to thirty meters away. Getting to within thirty meters of a tank without dying was an exercise that would be left to our infantrymen to figure out.

It had been naive of me to hope that some wonder weapon would be waiting for me on the shelf that would let our army trample over all opposition. Technology advanced one step at a time, providing small advantages along the way.

The only realistic prospect of a miracle weapon was the atomic bomb. Considering that Ugar's team had only recently managed to establish a continual chain reaction without putting their lives in danger, a working bomb was still a distant dream.

Rather than putting my faith in miracles, I should be satisfied to accumulate these small advantages. With time, enough of them would pile up to make a big difference. It was my job to make sure that we had that kind of time.

ooOoo

 _March 15, 1941_

The days passed amid rising tension, but no disasters. No wonderful surprises, either, but I was happy to take what I could get.

As expected, the Waldstatters had issued a report confirming that Muzzioli had cheated on the election. Also as expected, Muzzioli had ignored it.

We had adopted a three pronged strategy in response. First, those members of our party who could pass for sober statesmen were primed with the relevant facts and sent out to give speeches and interviews with furrowed brow, questioning the integrity of the Ildoan elections. Second, proof of the more sensationalistic forms of cheating was leaked to friendly press outlets. Finally, pamphlets and broadsheets were quietly spread throughout Ildoa that mocked Muzzioli and his ham-fisted election fraud.

The first prong of our strategy attracted little attention outside of Germania. Even within the country, reaction was muted. The second got more traction, particularly in the Albish press. It was the third, though, that finally got under Muzzioli's skin. It took a while to build up, but he finally exploded with a public denunciation of my 'slanderous lies' that stopped just short of challenging me to a duel.

He also demanded that his own envoy be allowed to investigate the election in Carinthia. He obviously just wanted to muddy the waters, but I still leaned on the Carinthians to allow it. There was no fraud to be found, and the envoy's futile efforts would provide a more eloquent rebuttal to Muzzioli's accusations than anything I could ever say. The envoy was still kicking around down there, with nothing to show for it but dark mutterings about the lack of cooperation from local officials.

We had also seen the first positive fallout of the Molotov-Ribéry pact in February, as Daneland signed on to OZEV. Even Legadonia agreed to sign a mutual defense pact in early March, although they declined our offer to integrate our armed forces under OZEV. By keeping some distance between us, it seemed they also hoped that their security guarantee from the Allied Kingdom would still hold some value.

Unfortunately, the Allied Kingdom never even seriously considered any of our offers of alliance. They also refused to contemplate any notion of international intervention in Ildoa. To be honest, their conduct in the beginning of the year seemed to come from indecision rather than any sort of grand strategy. The reason for that soon became clear when the government fell after a vote of no-confidence. The public mood in Albion hadn't exactly warmed to Germania, but it had certainly soured on the Francois Republic.

After a tumultuous election, the Allied Kingdom had turned back to the old warhorse and returned Prime Minister Churbull to power. The man was a thoroughgoing Albish chauvinist. While he was no friend of ours, he at least seemed to be no friend of the Francois Republic, either. His first move upon taking office was to station a division of Albish troops in Lothiern.

He had been in power for a week, and I had spent a week of daily meetings in Zettour's office, trying to make the best of the situation.

"I just wish that Churbull would listen to reason," I said, sighing. We'd reached the point of the meeting where we gave up on discussing productive measures that we could pursue, and instead devolved into self-pitying complaints. I wouldn't let it go on for too long, but I knew that even a man as stoic as Zettour needed a chance to vent once in a while.

"He would never sign an agreement that treated the Allied Kingdom as merely an equal partner," Zettour said. He picked up a cigar, contemplated it for a moment, then set it back down. "Let alone commit to fighting on our side."

"Just the prospect of facing the Allied Kingdom's navy would scare the Francois Republic into good behavior," I said.

"That would be quite useful. Although, to be fair, it has been some months now," Zettour said, picking up the cigar again and tapping it against his desk. "The Russy Federation and Francois Republic haven't decided to try their luck yet. So far our Central Powers alone have been strong enough to deter them."

"Our what?" I asked. I sat up straight, alarm bells going off in the back of my mind.

"Oh, that?" he said, setting down the cigar once more. "The official term is quite a mouthful, so some people have taken to describing our alliance as the Central Powers. It's fitting, considering the state of the map."

I just stared at him as I tried to convince myself that it was just a coincidence. There were only so many ways to describe an alliance of central European powers, after all. It didn't necessarily mean anything.

Our impromptu staring match was broken when Elya burst into the room, too flustered to knock. "Chancellor! Muzzioli's envoy to Carinthia has been assassinated by a terrorist group!"

Being X, you plagiarizing hack!

ooOoo

 _AN2: The memetic draw of Peenemünde was too strong to put the R &D anywhere else. Note, though, that Tanya's emphasis on the precise application of force means that there is relatively less of a focus on rocketry and more on electronics. This is reflected in both staffing and project priority. So while the projects featured here are ahead of OTL, even after allowing for the Schugel factor the V-2 is well behind._

 _AN3: For those following the tech tree at home, the torpedo is basically the Japanese Type 93 with an acoustic tracker and magnetic trigger bolted on. The precision bomb is the Fritz X. The missile is basically HVAR plus a proximity fuse (from a purely Axis perspective, it's a smaller Werfer-Granate 21 with a proximity fuse). The anti-tank weapon is the Panzerfaust. Also, as Germania does not have the cavity magnetron, it is not feasible to put a radar set capable of guiding a missile to a target on a fighter._

 _AN4: Finally, if you are like me and have trouble visualizing what's going on with the Fritz X, there is a wikipedia entry and, if you search around, some video online that explains what's going on._

 _AN5: With regard to land based rocketry, anything fast enough to threaten a plane is still liquid fueled and are firmly in the "only operate by trained specialists" category. Ditto with anything heavy enough to threaten a ship. They have fooled around with the equivalent of the Nebelwerfer 42 using the missiles shown off in chapter as air-to-air projectiles. As in OTL, dispersion problems keep it from being a very exciting piece of equipment._

 _AN6: I have been sitting on the Molotov-Ribéry pact wordplay since like chapter five._


	39. Chapter 39

_AN: For the map discussions, I recommend pulling up google maps in another tab, searching for Germany, then switching to terrain mode. I will keep the names of smaller towns as they are IRL so that it is easier to follow along. As a side note, if you look at Italy's border with Germany, Austria, and Slovenia in terrain mode, I think it makes the value of Carinthia pretty obvious._

ooOoo

 _March 15, 1941_

Our first priority in building the Carinthian People's Front had been to obscure the fact that it was a tool of Germanian intelligence. Our second priority had been to obscure the fact that it was founded simultaneously with the date of its great success in capturing a radio station and calling for an uprising. Both purposes had been served by adopting the loose, cell-based structure employed by freedom fighters and terrorists since time immemorial.

After all, it wasn't so unusual for a new recruit to be placed in a cell with three or four other new recruits. Certainly, it was less noticeable than a meeting hall filled with hundreds of new members. The cell leaders would get around the question of their own time spent with the group by the simple expedient of lying. Our personnel could simply be ordered to lie, of course. When expansion of the group required cell leaders to be picked from among the locals, they were quietly encouraged to embellish their experience in order to reassure the fellow members of their cell.

All of this combined to make the organization's detailed information hard to decipher for its own members, let alone outside investigators. That much was all well and good. Unfortunately, it also meant that the top leadership of the Carinthian People's Front did not exercise tight control over the rank and file. Thus, when members were told to prepare themselves and bide their time for the right moment to act, there was nothing to stop an enterprising cell leader from deciding that the time to act had come.

And so, it transpired that after Ugo Scorza left his latest unproductive meeting with Boris Marinko, the Prime Minister of Carinthia, his traveling party was waylaid by a small group of paramilitary gunmen. After Scorza's bodyguards had been disarmed at gunpoint, tied up, and left behind, the group marched Scorza along for several city blocks before executing him in front of the Ildoan's residence.

Such brazen murder was bad enough. Unfortunately, it also revealed a second oversight in my Carinthian policy. The vote on independence had also doubled as a vote for the inaugural Carinthian government. At the time, the only truly organized political party was the front group that I had authorized as a dumping ground for the excess volunteers we deemed too sane to bring in to the Carinthian People's Front. As a result, they had dominated in the voting.

Unfortunately, sanity is a relative thing. It was true that the inner circle of the People's Party of Carinthia were older, stable figures who were seen as leaders in their local communities. However, it was also true that they had been willing to volunteer to join a terrorist organization. Those sympathies had obviously seeped through the government, as the killing of Scorza could only have been carried out with at least the tacit consent of the local population and local law enforcement.

It got worse. Necessarily, receiving reports from a spy network in a foreign country took time. It wasn't simply a matter of sending a properly encrypted email in this day and age, especially from a backwater like Carinthia. By the time Elya had burst into Zettour's office, the news was several hours old. No sooner had she finished filling us in on the initial situation than a telegram came in from our ambassador on the scene with an update on the ensuing reaction.

Ildoa had never sent an ambassador to Carinthia, as they refused to acknowledge the country's independence. Muzzioli's envoy was the closest thing they had to a diplomatic presence in the country, and his residence was the closest thing they had to an embassy. When the staff inside saw Scorza's execution, their natural response was shock and anger. The second in command had reached out to the Prime Minister, demanding to know how he could allow the death of a man cloaked in the majesty and honor of the Ildoan Kingdom.

Marinko responded that he, too, was surprised that the majesty and honor of Ildoa did not convey protection from rifle bullets, considering Scorza's behavior.

This, of course, upon being relayed to Roma, prompted a return telegram containing an ultimatum from Muzzioli. Rather than prevaricate and play for time, Marinko's response to the ultimatum was a vulgar hand gesture.

All of this was relayed to our ambassador by Marinko himself. According to our ambassador's notes, the man seemed proud of his actions and to be looking forward to a fight.

As the old saying goes, don't worry about the expert on the other team. Worry about your own idiotic teammates.

I did my best to stay calm as I learned of the depth of our diplomatic problems. I told Zettour to see if it was possible to smooth things over, I told Elya to put out the order that we weren't to mobilize before an official declaration of war, and I excused myself for half an hour. I then kept quiet as I returned to my office, stepped into my sound-proofed meeting room, and locked the door behind me.

Then I put the soundproofing to the test.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

All I'd needed was a year. Was it too much to ask for one peaceful year? We had bent over backwards in order to give Carinthia a running start at a functional government. They'd taken our efforts as an open promise of unconditional support and decided to openly goad Muzzioli into an invasion. If I'd been there at the time, I would have grabbed Marinko by the shoulder and forced him to at least pretend to knuckle under to the ultimatum.

Now that the die had been cast, though, I could hardly hang them out to dry. The whole structure of OZEV was built on mutual trust and support. If I suddenly announced that I would sit in judgment of my allies' actions any time war loomed, the whole thing would unravel.

And war was coming. It had been highly optimistic of Zettour to think that our alliance had been deterring Franco-Russy aggression. It was more accurate to say that the Francois Republic had been stuck in a balancing act, trying to accomplish its aggressive goals without turning the Allied Kingdom into an enemy. Launching a second war of naked aggression so soon after their invasion of Ildoa would have been too much. Now that Carinthia had handed them a casus belli on a platter, though, it was folly to cling to the hope that they would hold themselves back any longer.

I paused in my frantic pacing and grumbling to study the map that had been left out on the conference room table. Nothing had changed in the last half hour to make things any more favorable to Germania. Studied in light of the coming war, it was a chilling sight. The Russy Federation had more land and more people than all the countries of OZEV combined. The Francois Republic and Kingdom of Ildoa were both great powers in their own right. Yugoslavia, while not on the same level as the others, was still the local bully in the Balkans.

Not only were we outnumbered, we were facing war on multiple fronts. Three, or even four, depending on how you counted. Somehow, with all of my future knowledge and level headed, rational, thinking, I had managed to stumble into a situation more dire than anything the Empire had engineered. At least the Empire had only gradually surrounded itself with enemies. I had dragged them all in to fight from the jump!

I pulled myself together when I heard the sound of a key turning in the lock on the door. There weren't many people who had the key to this room. Certainly, I wouldn't want to let any of them know how badly I was rattled.

I had only barely regained my composure when the door opened to reveal Visha, a worried expression on her face. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, then stopped to look me up and down.

I braced myself, hoping that nothing in my appearance had given away my distress. I then felt an immediate urge to slap myself in the face.

This was Visha. I didn't need to worry about her losing faith in me. If anything, I needed to worry about her having too much faith in me and in the country's military situation. If I wasn't careful, she'd cheerfully throw her life away in some hopeless battle.

"We're screwed! Look at the map," I said. This was no time for subtlety. "Not only are we badly outnumbered, we're surrounded as well."

"Chancellor-"

"I want you to flee the country as soon as troops from the Russy Federation cross the border," I said. "With the Type-99, you should be able to reach the Allied Kingdom."

Even as I gave the direction, I had second thoughts. Could I really trust Visha to resist the lure of battle and make the rational choice to flee the country? It was all too easy to imagine her fighting some doomed last stand against the Red Army on the outskirts of Berun, secure in the unwarranted belief that I was about to turn the tables with some sort of miracle.

"Tanya-"

"No, no, on second thought, you should head up a diplomatic mission to the Unified States," I said. "Then you can apply for asylum once-mph."

It had been so long since I'd felt a pair of lips on my own that for a long moment I didn't understand what was going on. I was looking into a familiar pair of eyes from much closer than usual, and... Visha was kissing me!

Then she took a step back. I brought a hand up, instinctively touching my lips. She straightened her blouse and turned her attention to the map on the table.

"We have four enemies, but they don't trust each other much and there's a lot of space between them," she said. "So if we act quickly, instead of beating four countries, we just have to beat one country, four times."

Visha kissed me!

"You kissed me!"

She smiled. "We should talk about that after we win."

Ten years. More than that, really. All that time spent restraining myself, avoiding any inappropriate looks or touching, hiding any appearance of unwanted attraction that might make Visha uncomfortable. All of that was coming undone, and I found myself looking at Visha with new eyes.

Crassly speaking, Visha had always been right in the middle of my strike zone. She was a classic beauty, and even in her thirties she still had the looks and vitality of a much younger woman. Had she been born in a different era, she would have been drafted into posing for magazine covers rather than for military duty.

More than that, though, she had been with me through thick and thin. She had been a pillar of support during the darkest days of the war, an indispensable assistant during my early days in politics, and a willing learner as deputy chancellor. There hadn't been anybody else in this world that I had even considered as a romantic companion. And, it seemed, I didn't have to hold myself back any longer.

I had always liked seeing Visha smile, but I wasn't so sure about the completely self-satisfied grin she was sporting. I took a step forward.

Something of my intentions must have shown on my face, as she took a step back. I took another step forward. She took another step back. I took a third step. This time, when she stepped back, her back ran into the wall. I quickly stretched out my left arm and planted my hand against the wall, cutting off her escape. Then I leaned forward and kissed her properly.

When I finished and took a step back, I was the one with a self-satisfied smirk on my face. Visha was flushed, leaning against the wall for support.

"After we win, then," I said.

I then strode over to the door, tossing it open to find Elya waiting on the other side. "Call General Lergen! We have a war to plan."

ooOoo

The strategic meeting was attended by the usual members of my inner circle: Zettour, Visha, Elya, General Lergen, and myself. There was no need to involve a whole mess of generals and admirals. It was General Lergen's job to present options to the civilian government and to convey our decisions to the military. The last thing I wanted to do was to undermine him by giving instructions directly to his underlings. Conversely, the rest of the cabinet had to focus on their side of things. Civilian crises might inform military strategy, but I didn't particularly need to hear my finance minister's thoughts on the use of our army.

I found myself more aware than usual of the fact that Visha was sitting next to me. I certainly felt more than an ordinary pull to look over in her direction. I managed to resist the temptation to moon over my deputy chancellor, though. This was a serious meeting. If I was smiling more than usual, well, nobody said that meetings have to be dour affairs.

"Let's assume for now that war breaks out tomorrow," I said. Zettour had tried reaching out to the Ildoans, but they didn't seem to be in a mood to talk. I didn't expect Muzzioli to wait long before his official declaration of war. "What can we expect?"

"The Francois Republic will attack immediately. Otherwise they would lose the advantage given to them by the demilitarized zone," Lergen said. "The Ildoans will conduct some sort of offensive right away, but they will need time to organize for a serious invasion. The Russy Federation, even more so. Yugoslavia is more difficult to predict, but in any event is not an immediate threat to Germania."

"They still pose a threat to OZEV's interests," I said.

"Yes, of course. However, our plans call for any Yugoslavian offensive to be met by local forces," Lergen replied. "Our immediate concern is the Francois Republic."

He pulled a map from his briefcase and unrolled it on the table for everybody to see. On it was a close up view of the border area. Helpfully, it was color coded according to the terrain.

"They will first secure Saarbrücken. It's the largest town in the immediate area and will serve as a convenient logistical hub," he said, pointing it out on the map. "From there they face a choice. In medieval times, the Francois Kingdom would send its armies to Kaiserslautern and then onward to secure a crossing on the Rhine. That would open the way to Bavaria in the southeast, or to the northeast to old Preussia and eventually to the capital. For a modern army, though, they could simply continue directly north from Saarbrücken, only needing to cover two hundred and fifty kilometers to reach the southern edge of the industrial heartlands on the Rhine."

"Moving east would also move them towards our prepared defenses," Visha said. I smiled, nodding in agreement.

"Indeed. I expect that they will take Kaiserslautern to screen their advance and to serve as an airfield," Lergen said, "but the main effort will be the push north. Should they push far enough north to maintain heavy artillery fire on the Rhine industrial area, the result would be devastating."

Of course, indiscriminate fire on an inhabited city would be a violation of the rules of war. It would be foolish, though, to trust our safety to our enemy's good conscience. No doubt they would try to justify their behavior on the theory that the city produced military equipment or some such nonsense.

"What do you suggest, then?" Zettour asked.

"We've already begun evacuating civilians from the areas where we anticipate heavy fighting," Lergen said.

I nodded. "Good."

"Beyond that, broadly speaking, we have two options," Lergen said. "We can attempt to fortify a position and stop the Francois Republic as close to the border as possible before driving them back. If we begin immediately we may even be able to keep them out of Saarbrücken."

I shook my head. "Unfortunately, we have to play to the audience in Albion. We can't do anything at all provocative."

Silly as it was to describe defending ourselves as provocative, we had agreed to the demilitarized zone throughout several rounds of international negotiations. If we were to violate that agreement, the Francois Republic would be certain to seize on the obvious talking point. The last thing we needed was to drag yet another major power into the war on the other side. For that matter, I was still holding out some hope that the Allied Kingdom might intervene on our side. In order for that to happen though, we needed to be on our best behavior.

I looked to the side. Zettour didn't seem happy about the situation, but I was sure that he understood the necessity. Visha was chewing her lip in frustration. I watched for a moment, waiting to see if she had anything to say. She looked over and met my eyes briefly before looking down at the table, her face flushed.

"I don't like the idea of putting on a show."

I chuckled. Of course Visha would prefer the straightforward cut and thrust of battle without any diplomatic considerations. "Our situation is precarious enough. We simply can't afford to do anything that would push the Allied Kingdom to join hands with the Molotov-Ribéry pact."

General Lergen cleared his throat. "In that case, we could establish a line north of Saarbrücken that blocked off the roads to Kaiserslauten and to the Rhine industrial area. Operations designed to push the Francois Republic's army back would take place as both countries mobilized. In time, the balance of forces would tilt in our favor. We should be able to push them out of Germania within two months."

I took a moment to study General Lergen. He had a neutral expression on his face, but I knew he was hardly a man who would be satisfied to spend two months fighting just to restore the pre-war status quo. Not after he'd spent a decade stewing over the Empire's ignominious defeat.

"What's our other option?"

"While it would be dangerous," Lergen said, "we could attempt to trap the invading force and destroy it in its entirety."

I could feel the smile on my face take on a more aggressive cast. As expected, when it was time to take him off the leash, General Lergen didn't disappoint. All of the headaches associated with supervising him paid off in moments like this.

Of course, if even General Lergen thought the plan was dangerous, there was certainly a chance that things could end in disaster. Fortunately for me, going on the run didn't seem so bad now that it meant going on the run together with someone.

ooOoo

 _March 16, 1941_

Frederick Rosenvelt hadn't expected to be working late into the night after being elected to the exalted office of President of the Unified States of America. Ongoing events in Europe had dragged him into the office after dinner on Sunday, an experience he had thought he had left behind in his younger years. Even so, he was grateful for the chance to guide his nation's course through such a momentous occasion. He knew that his countrymen thought that he should focus on the economy, and he did, but he also knew that the Unified States couldn't afford to ignore the world-shaking events taking place across the ocean.

Sharing in his late night were William Riley, the Secretary of State, John Dern, the Secretary of War, and Claude Pritchett, the Secretary of the Navy. Also in the room with them was a nervous White House technical assistant, busy fiddling with a film projector. A knock on the door drew their attention, and the door opened to reveal Charles Morrow, looking rather rumpled.

Rosenvelt had appointed Morrow as a special advisor to the President. Ostensibly his brief was on matters of magic, but Rosenvelt had also wanted to bring somebody with him to Washington from New Amstreldam who was willing to call a spade a spade. Somewhat to his surprise, Margaret Caldwell had made the move along with Morrow. It seemed she was intent on making an honest man out of the old bachelor. Rosenvelt was a good friend, though, and didn't give Morrow a hard time about it more than once or twice a week.

"Charlie," Rosenvelt said, "I'm glad you could make it."

Whatever else Morrow had been appointed to do, he was also the closest thing in Washington to a personal acquaintance of Chancellor Degurechaff. It would be a waste to miss the opportunity to pick his brain over what was going on in Europe.

"Of course," Morrow said. He looked around the room, seeming a bit distracted.

"Have you heard anything from Milly?" Rosenvelt asked. He did keep track of his subordinates' personal lives, at least to some degree. The last he had heard, Millicent Caldwell had been touring the Francois Republic.

"I got hold of her on the phone. Told her to get on the first ship headed home," Morrow said, shaking his head. "She insists she wants to stay in Parisee and report on the war. It's the damnedest thing."

Morrow received murmured condolences from the other men in attendance as he took his seat. Rosenvelt looked over to see that the technician had finally finished with his work.

"I'm afraid Europe is in for rough times, gentlemen," Rosenvelt said. "You've seen the notes from de Lugo and Muzzioli."

War had been declared. If early reports were to be believed, the Francois Republic was already on the march. Now, the open question was how Germania would respond. Rosenvelt had read the speech already, but words on a page were no substitute for looking a person in the eye and taking her measure. He couldn't meet Degurechaff face to face, of course, so he had to turn to the next best thing.

"This is Degurechaff's response," he continued. "It was broadcast on live television earlier today to all of Germania."

The projectionist took his cue and started the machine. There was a moment of confused flickering light that resolved itself into the familiar face of Tanya von Degurechaff, seated at a desk. Rosenvelt noted absently that the camera had been set close enough that Degurechaff dominated the picture.

"My fellow Germanians," she began. "It is my solemn duty to inform you that our nation is at war."

"The Francois Republic and Russy Federation have been salivating over the chance to divide Europe between them," Degurechaff continued. "They have found their excuse in Carinthia, and now intend to plunge the whole continent into war."

Rosenvelt hummed to himself. It was a neat bit of rhetoric to make Scorza's assassination disappear, at least.

"It brings me no pleasure to make this announcement. I would rather be celebrating the success of our new professional football league or touting the sales numbers of the People's Car," she said. "The last ten years of peace have been much better for our people than the previous eight years of war."

Degurechaff sighed. For a moment, all his knowledge of the woman to the contrary, Rosenvelt could almost believe that she regretted the need to go to war. Maybe there was something to that magazine article, after all.

"I prefer peace. The good and decent people of Germania all prefer peace. But through these years of peace, we have not forgotten how to wage war," Degurechaff said. "If it is a war our enemies want, then we shall give them all the war they could ask for, and more besides."

Her posture shifted as she spoke. Rosenvelt suspected he was getting a look back through time at Major Degurechaff, now.

"Germania does not stand alone in this fight. The people of Pullska have long been preparing a defensive line to see off the army of the Russy Federation. Czechoslovakia and Dacia, too, stand ready. A great iron wall stretches from the Baltic to the Black Sea, holding the line against the communist menace," she continued. "Hungary and Croatia are with us, prepared to work together with Dacia to thwart Yugoslavia's bloody expansionism. Carinthia, of course, may be small, but they certainly aren't afraid to take on the swaggering bully Muzzioli. And Daneland has stood tall, contributing both soldiers and material support to the common cause even though its borders aren't directly threatened by our enemies."

He had been expecting her to extol her own people's history of military success. There were plenty of examples she could have chosen. It was interesting that she had instead chosen to emphasize the presence of her allies.

"We, the people of Germania will add our voice and our strength to the rest of the nations in the Central European Treaty Organization. Our message is simple: to nations that greet us with good will, we are happy to extend the hand of friendship, establishing cordial relations and healthy trade agreements," Degurechaff said. "To the nations that seek to use force to take from us what is ours, we say: no! To the petty tyrants yearning for conquered territory: no! To the communist zealots on their dark crusade: no!"

Her voice was gradually rising as she built up to the big finish.

"The free people of Europe reject your bullying! We reject your extortion! We reject your grasping ambitions!" she said, bringing her fist down on her desk. "When this war is over, your evil plans of conquest will be cast into the dust bin of history where they belong!"

She sat back and cleared her throat. "To all the people of Germania, this is a moment when we must stand together, work together, and fight together. Difficult times are ahead, but in the end, we will be all the stronger for it. Thank you, and good night."

With that, the film came to an end. For a moment, the room was still.

"Well," Claude Pritchett said, breaking the silence, "I'd say she isn't looking for a compromise."

"It's going to be a hell of a scrap," John Dern added. "Damn near half of Europe against damn near the other half."

"She didn't mention Legadonia," William Riley said, scratching his chin. "I wonder if there's been a quibble about the terms of their mutual defense pact."

Rosenvelt nodded along with their observations. He wouldn't be surprised if Legadonia was getting cold feet over jumping into a war that Carinthia had blatantly provoked. Most of his focus, though, was on turning over what he had just seen in his mind's eye. Something about it itched at him.

"Can you play that over again, without the sound?" he asked the projectionist, who scrambled to comply. He turned back to the other men. "Just watch Degurechaff. Tell me if you notice anything."

He didn't want to prejudice the other men, so he didn't give any more specific instructions. Watching the speech again without the distraction of the oratory, though, he was more and more certain that he was on to something.

Riley was the next to pick up on it. "Does she seem... happy?"

It was a subtle thing. She wasn't grinning or laughing, but any time during the speech when she wasn't deliberately adopting a rhetorical pose, there was just something in her posture, something in her face that stood out.

"If it were any other woman, I'd say she looked like a blushing bride," Morrow said, slapping his leg. "Damn, I'd hate to be in the first army to try marching across her border."

When Rosenvelt had first considered attempting to mediate the coming conflict, part of his motivation had been to protect Germania. It was an important trading partner for the Unified States, after all. Now, he was starting to suspect that any future form of mediation that came to fruition would be more in the nature of trying to find some mercy for Degurechaff's enemies. As badly tilted as the raw numbers might appear, a canny military thinker like Degurechaff wouldn't be so jubilant on the eve of war if she didn't have at least one ace up her sleeve.

He wondered for a moment how long she had been working to line up the dominoes to fall just how she wanted, then shook his head. From this distance, he couldn't hope to see behind the scenes. All he could do was enjoy the show.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Regarding the strategic discussion, I will say that I don't think the Francois Republic would just zerg rush north and let themselves get sniped off like a bunch of HOI4 noobs. However, the Rhine industrial area is a war winning target that has been left defenseless thanks to their diplomatic wrangling. They have a unique opportunity to win the war in a matter of weeks. I don't think that's something they would just ignore. Especially if they want to make sure the Russy Federation keeps its promises (or they want to reopen negotiations on a favorable footing), crippling Germania's war effort while the Rus are still grinding through Pullska would be huge._


	40. Chapter 40

_AN1: I didn't actually plan it out this way, but it shook out that after chapters 1 through 20 made up a coherent story arc (culminating with Rudersdorf's assault on Tanya's worldview), chapters 21-39 also make up a more or less coherent story arc (culminating with Visha's assault on Tanya's worldview). We'll see if there's another twenty chapters before the end._

ooOoo

 _March 16, 1941_

Waking up on a cot in my office to be handed a declaration of war was not my favorite way to start a day. Fortunately, even as Elya was handing me the missives from Ildoa and the Francois Republic, Visha was waiting behind her with a freshly brewed cup of coffee and a pastry from Heidler's Berun, fresh out of the oven. So it wasn't all bad.

A moment later I was at my desk, finished reading the mail and almost done with my breakfast. I took a sip of coffee to wash down the last few bites, then turned to Elya.

"What's the status of the evacuation?"

"Kaiserslautern and the surrounding area, clear through to the Rhine, has been fully evacuated," Elya reported. "The towns north of the Moselle will be evacuated before the Francois Republic's army reaches them. Saarbrücken has been declared an open city, and the citizens near the border who could not be evacuated have been instructed not to resist the Francois."

I nodded. "Good."

Unavoidably, the movement of our civilians would tip off the Francois as to our plans. What were they going to do, though? Not press forward the attack? I didn't think so. Any army that took pride in its abilities would love a chance to fight without having to worry about pesky civilians getting in the way.

The Francois Republic's military plans had always been premised on pushing all their chips into the center of the table at the first opportunity. General Lergen's strategy was having Germania follow suit. Both sides were confident in their armies. It wouldn't be long before we knew who was right, and who was screwed.

I looked at Visha and smiled. One way or another, this war would be over in far less time than the last one.

I turned back to Elya. "Is Koenig's group in place?"

Elya nodded. "They set sail last night. We received a radio report from them this morning, and sent them confirmation that we were at war."

I sighed. "I wish we could do more for Pullska."

Perhaps the shakiest portion of our strategy was the plan for the eastern nations of OZEV to hold off the Russy Federation for three weeks by themselves. That was the time that we needed to mobilize enough of the population to be able to spare soldiers for the eastern front. Pullska, in particular, had the only army that would stand between the commies and Berun. The good news was that the Russy Federation hadn't established any kind of fast acting invasion force as the Francois Republic had. The bad news was that once the Russy Federation got moving, they'd badly outnumber our eastern allies. We had to hope that the avalanche wouldn't bury us for at least three weeks.

"Reports from the Degurechaff Line say that morale is high," Elya said.

"The what?" I asked.

"Well, you did insist that they build it to such a high standard," Elya said, "and we did sell them most of the weapons and material they used, so they named it after you!"

"With that kind of name," I said, shaking my head, "they should hold out for three months, let alone three weeks."

What a crazy world. Of course, as happy as they were that I had led them into this war, that's how upset they would be if we lost it. Which reminded me, now that the war had started, I had a speech to write. I wasn't sure it was possible to divert the public's attention from the fact that I had bungled us into a three-front war, but I'd do my best.

ooOoo

 _March 16, 1941_

Wilibald Koenig lay still in bed. There wasn't much else he could do. The bare metal ceiling wasn't much more than a foot from his nose. Space was always at a premium aboard a submarine.

He'd gone to bed early the previous night, exhausted after the long flight to the Pulish port, and now he was awake early in the morning. He should have tried to catch some extra sleep. Even the submarine's bedding was luxurious compared to what was waiting for him over the next few weeks. He was far too excited for that, though.

People said the Academy's training exercises were like war. They even said that aerial lacrosse was like a battle.

Those people were wrong. There was nothing like war. Nothing drew the utmost from an opponent like the actual fear of death, and there was nothing like the satisfaction of winning when the stakes were so high.

Koenig loved his wife. He was ecstatic when she told him they had a baby on the way. Still, though, when he'd been summoned off to battle, he'd gone with a smile on his face. He knew he was lucky to be married to a woman who didn't begrudge him his first love, even if she was only so open-minded thanks to the way that they'd met.

He felt the submarine shift around him. They were rising to periscope depth. He'd waited long enough. Time to rise and shine.

An hour later, he stood on the deck of the surfaced submarine. The cold wind pelted his face with a salty spray lifted from the top of the Baltic rollers. Off in the distance, the shore of the Russy Federation was barely visible in the pre-dawn gloom. Koenig barely paid his surroundings any mind, his attention fixed on the submarine's captain as he read from a sheet of paper that had been handed up the ladder. The man shook his head.

"It's war, then," he said, then looked up to give Koenig a salute. "Godspeed, Major."

"Thank you, Captain," Koenig said, returning the salute. He then leaned past the captain to call down to the waiting mages. "First company, let's go."

Twelve men came streaming up the ladder and poured out onto the deck. Each man, like Koenig, had a paddle strapped across their packs. Each man, also like Koenig, was dressed in a weatherbeaten but fully authentic uniform of a Russy Federation infantryman.

Koenig watched in satisfaction as they worked. He'd spent the better part of two years picking out candidates for his team. Every mage who came up through the Academy could fight, of course. But during his time in the far east he'd come see the value of more subtle talents. Every one of his men was the quiet, careful sort who followed directions and paid attention to what they were doing. Every one of them could wear the uniform of any one of Germania's hostile neighbors and speak the language at least well enough to pass for an average grunt. Every one of them was capable of clearing out a bar full of enemy soldiers without using enough magic to trip any nearby detectors.

He hadn't just scouted out capable students, he'd also taken the time to drive home the lessons he'd brought home from Sibyria. As a result, he was confident that he commanded the best group of commandos that the world had ever seen. He wasn't quite as confident as the Chancellor, who had cheerfully ordered their team of forty men to disrupt operations along a thousand mile front, but he certainly intended to do his best to live up to her expectations.

They were starting off on the right foot, at least. One man from each platoon had been carrying a rubber cube along with the rest of the gear. They each found a clear spot on the deck before pulling on the attached rip cord, allowing the compressed gas to inflate the boat. Each platoon tied their backpacks in place in the middle of their boat before working together to get their boat in the water.

Even the lee side of the submarine wasn't exactly calm. Fortunately, aerial mages were made of stern stuff, and the men were soon on their way. Koenig called up second and third company in turn, before finally taking his leave of the submarine aboard a raft with the rest of the command platoon.

Four aerial mages paddling together could move along at a pretty good clip. Koenig took a moment to enjoy the fresh sea air as the shore came closer. The beach seemed as deserted as planned. They hadn't seen another soul on their brief journey landward. Koenig could barely see the other rafts that he knew were in the water with him, but took comfort from the fact that nobody had sent out a distress call.

The pounding surf made for a bit of an adventure, but soon enough they were up and over and had beached their raft on the sand. He didn't waste any time piling out and dragging the raft securely up out of the sea, joining the rest of the battalion.

Mage blades made quick work of the rafts, reducing them to rubber scrap. A bit of physical enhancement let them smash their paddles into kindling with ease. The sea would take care of dispersing any evidence that they had ever been there.

Tracks covered, it was time to march all alone into enemy territory with nothing but their computation orbs and their shitty Russyan rifles for protection. Koenig was having fun already.

ooOoo

 _March 16, 1941_

General Jean Hénault arrived in Saarbrücken an hour late. He checked his pocket watch one last time as he disembarked from the train, then did his best to put the matter out of his mind. In the last war, it had taken months of bitter fighting before the Francois Republic had reached even the outskirts of Saarbrücken. His men had captured it before noon.

It was just barely acceptable. The Francois Republic had been presented with a magnificent opportunity, and he didn't intend to waste it by dawdling.

Colonel Chesson, the leader of the scouting regiment, was waiting for him on the platform. At least somebody was doing his job properly. General Hénault stopped in front of him and returned his salute.

"Report."

"Nothing to report, sir," Chesson replied. "They have a sign up calling Saarbrücken an open city and nobody has so much as fired a shot at us. I still wouldn't order food at the local restaurants."

General Hénault waved aside the concern. They had learned from their last occupation of Germania to minimize their interaction with the locals as much as possible. "You've identified a location for our headquarters?"

"Yes sir," Chesson said. "An abandoned farm just outside of town, close to the main road. The truck drivers know where it is."

Chesson indicated the nearby freight yard. His scouting regiment had been fitted out with extra shipping capacity for this mission. Hénault could see the trucks that were in the process of being loaded from the newly arrived train. Chalk up another few people who had managed to do their jobs without his direct intervention.

Hénault carefully avoided pressing for any further details about the property. Time was of the essence. The important thing now was to establish the base that would serve as the command post for Francois Republican forces in Germania. If a farmer showed up later with a complaint, he could take up the question of compensation with the civilian government.

It would be General Hénault's duty to see to the initial buildup, from stakes and lines drawn in the ground to a neatly laid out set of tents behind some basic defenses, at least enough to house the men and serve as a working camp. It would be for the next wave to turn the camp into something more permanent. He'd be moving on with his men to strike at the Rhine industrial area.

"Very well," General Hénault said. "Keep moving north. I want a bridge over the river Moselle."

"You really think we can catch the devil napping, sir?" Chesson asked.

General Hénault felt his fist clench in anger. Rather than snap at the man, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarette. He lit it and took a drag. He felt some of the tension leave him as he exhaled a cloud of smoke before he replied.

"It's foolish to attribute everything that happens within the borders of the country to one woman," Hénault said. "The more quickly we move and the more pressure we put on the enemy, the more likely it is that he—or she—will make a mistake."

"Yes, sir," Chesson replied.

Sometimes it seemed that half the army was paralyzed by the great encirclement they suffered during the Great War, and the other half was fixated on the debacle at Duisbuch. One reason General Hénault took such pleasure in being assigned the lead role in this invasion was that it presented him with the opportunity to exorcise the old ghosts haunting the Francois Republic and prove that the Devil of the Rhine could be beaten. The scientific application of overwhelming force, coupled with the army's doctrine of rapid attack, would show that the page of history had been turned and the Francois Republic had regained its rightful place in the sun.

Let the civilian government huff and puff about the economic necessity of war. General Hénault knew that war was necessary to restore the pride that was the birthright of the Frankish nation.

"If you do secure a bridge," General Hénault said, "you can expect all possible aerial and magical support in holding it."

"Yes, sir," Chesson repeated. He saluted, then made his way back to his men.

General Hénault was left to his own duties. He looked up as the first truck left the freight yard, then checked his watch. Forty-five minutes behind schedule. Not bad.

ooOoo

 _March 17, 1941_

A hard day's march had seen them leave the coast out of sight and earned them a night's sleep under the branches of a desolate forest. Say what you want about Russy gear, at least it was warm.

The next day saw them finally hit a decent-sized road not long after they had stopped for lunch. Koenig led them south. His battered Russy map of the area suggested that they were on the road to Klaipeda. With the Russy Federation at war, there ought to be troops congregating in the area, being so close to Pullska. It was too early for Koenig to have any particular plan in mind, but he had a feeling that something would turn up.

He looked up from the map and took a glance back at his men and had to fight down a smile. It had taken a week of training to beat the habits into them, but the results were worth it. Instead of the high-stepping pride of an elite mage battalion, his men were shuffling along with the dispirited look of a Russy platoon who would just as soon shoot their lieutenant in the back as maintain a forced march. Teyanen, marching just behind him, was particularly well suited to his role as a long-suffering sergeant, face cramped up as if he were suffering a bad case of indigestion.

Koenig hoped the man was just playing a role. He seemed to have the worst luck when it came to military rations.

In any event, as Koenig gave his men one last looking over, nothing about them stood out. Marching through enemy territory, that ability would be just as important as the Type 99 computation orb that each man had concealed on his person.

Their disguises were put to the test a few hours later. Koenig heard their audience coming before he saw them. The rumble of engines announced the approach of a small convoy of trucks. The men moved to the side of the road. Koenig stepped out into the middle of it and waved down the lead vehicle.

The convoy ground to a halt. Koenig stepped forward and spoke without waiting for the other party to greet him.

"Is this the road to Klaipeda?"

In response, the door to the truck opened and a man jumped out. The shoulder tabs on his uniform proclaimed him a captain in the Russy Federation's army. Koenig took a hasty step back and snapped off an awkward salute.

At the same time, he took note of the fact that the man facing him most likely worked in logistics. To his eye, the good captain hadn't seen anything more dangerous than a bar fight in some time.

"Sir, sorry, sir," Koenig said. "It's just, none of the roads are where the map say they should be."

The captain studied him for a moment, then turned his attention to Teyanen. Koenig didn't have to look back to know that his second in command was very pointedly not rolling his eyes. To complete the picture, Koenig's lessons in the Russy language had come from his wife left him with slight but indelible traces of a foppish upper class accent.

Koenig had fought on three different continents and shared meals with fighting men from more nations than he could count. They all had their differences, but they had their similarities too. One thing he had found was that every language had a version of the old Germanian saying: the most dangerous thing on the battlefield is a lieutenant with a map.

The driver sighed. "Yes, lieutenant. You're on the road to Klaipeda."

Koenig stepped forward, clasping the man's hand in an obviously unwelcome handshake. "Oh, that's wonderful news. Really, such a relief. Three seconds."

The last bit was said in a normal conversational tone after activating a communication spell. Koenig had been keeping an eye out as his men had more or less naturally moved towards the stopped trucks and engaged the men inside in conversation.

The captain cocked his head. "What was that?"

"Oh, I was just saying, after the first two hours I really didn't-" Koenig said, before activating the communication spell again, "now!"

He yanked the captain forward and left him for Teyanen to deal with. For his own part, Koenig took a step, then tapped into a strength and reflex enhancement and leaped into the open door of the truck.

The man in the passenger seat was just starting to react. He was reaching for the gun holstered at his side. Koenig didn't bother trying to interrupt the motion, and instead chopped across his neck with the edge of his hand, hard enough to hear something crunch. His victim gave up reaching for the gun and instead scrabbled uselessly at his throat. Koenig grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him out of the truck. Once he was outside and no longer threatening to bleed anywhere important, a mage blade quickly ended his struggles.

Koenig dragged him off to join the rest of the bodies out of sight of the main road. He took a quick accounting while his men started digging an impromptu grave. They had taken possession of six trucks, each more or less fully stocked with army supplies. The twelve men accompanying the trucks had been killed without a single shot fired, and with only light damage to the vehicles.

It was a good start.

The next order of business was to track down the body of the unfortunate captain. Koenig plucked the rank insignia off the man's uniform passed it off to Teyanen.

"Congratulations on your promotion, comrade."

"It's an honor to be part of the revolutionary vanguard, sir," Teyanen said, before turning back to chew out a group that had paused in their digging.

Koenig turned back to his own work, rifling the captain's pockets. This turned up half a pack of atrocious cigarettes, a book of matches, a crumpled wad of cash, and a set of written orders. He idly fished out a cigarette and lit it as he skimmed the orders. After the initial coughing fit, it wasn't too bad... no, it was still terrible. You never knew, though, just which little detail would be the key to selling a cover story.

The orders, on the other hand, made for very pleasant reading. Koenig knew from his work out east that the Russy Federation liked to build up a nice big stockpile of supplies before it kicked off any major offensive. The good captain had been requisitioning material from the locals on orders to deliver it to just such a stockpile.

They had not only picked up some trucks to drive, but also somewhere to go.

ooOoo

 _March 21, 1941_

General Hénault read through the reports in front of him with a sense of weary satisfaction. It seemed that all of his efforts since the army had started its dash north were about to pay off. It hadn't been easy.

The first day, especially, had been a mess. Men who were supposed to arrive in steady streams according to the train schedule instead arrived in fits and spurts. One enterprising group of officers made it to Saarbrücken by commandeering a taxi cab from Metz.

The men didn't show up on time, they didn't show up in any particular order, but they did show up. By the end of that first day the better part of thirty divisions had made their way to Saarbrücken. General Hénault and his staff made sure that they had a place to sleep and that they would wake up in good order. Or, at least, that the officers would know where their men were sleeping.

As much General Hénault had tried to keep the men ready during peace time, he dearly wished that he had been given some warning of the coming war. With a few days to whip the men into shape, they could have hit the ground running. As it was, the army found its bearing as it continued to move north. It took them two days to reach the Moselle, and by the time they crossed the river it was starting to feel more like the force that had stormed across Ildoa in record time. The forward units had even managed to capture three bridges fully intact, which meant that the river hardly slowed their progress at all.

Crossing the river brought them into the rolling hills and valleys of the heavily forested Eifel region, the Germanian extension of the Francois Republic's own Ardennes. A network of roads allowed the army to split up and continue forward without too much congestion, but the roads themselves were shoddy things. Degurechaff's highway building program had left this region untouched.

As much as Hénault tried to tamp down his subordinates' paranoia, it was hard not to feel the woman's shadow stretching out over them as they pressed on. The Germanians, it seemed, had decided to begin their resistance once the army had crossed the Moselle.

The first attack had come as a shock. A rocket artillery barrage had seemingly materialized out of thin air. As soon as Hénault had gathered himself and ordered the men forward, he received a report of a magical signature detected, fleeing the area.

The attacks had continued in that vein. A sudden assault, whether rocket artillery, artillery spell, or simple automatic weapons fire, followed by a rapid escape.

The rough terrain made aerial surveillance almost useless when it came to sniffing out these ambushes ahead of time. General Hénault had ultimately resorted to sending his own magical forces forward en masse to clear the forest before the main body of the army arrived. These succeeded in flushing out several would-be ambushers, although they were unable to chase them down. The Germanians had maintained their damnable speed advantage, even after all this time.

If there was one thing that the Francois Republic simply must obtain at the upcoming peace negotiations, it was the Germanian magical technology. Hénault could only imagine the things he could do with such troops under his command.

There was merit to the Francois Republic's approach too, of course. For all of their speed, the Germanian mages didn't dare to stand and fight. They would have been swarmed under by superior numbers. It was Hénault's guess that similar considerations had decided the Germanians against making their stand in the forested Eifel region. Mages were devastatingly effective in tight quarters, but the reduced range and visibility would strip the Germanian mages of their advantage in speed and mobility. If Hénault could face the Germanians with the magical battle on even terms, let alone in his favor, he would win in a rout.

More frustrating than his men's inability to bring any of the Germanians to battle was that not all of the ambushers had been flushed out. The steady drumbeat of attacks was reduced to the occasional pin prick, but each ambush still saw good men dead by the side of the road. There was nothing for it but to grit their teeth and continue the advance.

He had comforted himself with the knowledge that once they reached the Rhine industrial area, the Germanian mages would be forced to stand and fight whether they wanted to or not.

His scouts had reached the edge of the forest two days ago, and the forward elements of his army had caught up with them yesterday. Today, though, his army was gathered and ready to attack. After suffering several days of sneak attacks, they were more than ready to unleash their fury on the enemy. They were also faced with their first proper defense works of the campaign.

As detailed on the report he was reading, the Germanians had been harassing his army in order to buy time to fortify the final approach to the Rhine. The Francois Republic's army had gathered behind the abandoned city of Rheinbach. The city sat on level and open terrain, which persisted on a broad front to the north east for about ten kilometers before one last stretch of forest blocked the way to Bonnburg, the southernmost city of the Rhine industrial area. This wasn't the wild forest of the Eifel, though, and in fact the road directly northeast led to a cleared gap that allowed direct access to the city.

The Germanian fortifications were concentrated on this gap. They stretched out across the face of the forest to the southeast all the way to the Rhine. To the northwest, the fortifications continued on for dozens of kilometers at least.

General Hénault had no interest in racing north and west, trying to find the end of the Germanian defenses. Construction had obviously begun along the entire chosen front upon the declaration of war. Putting off the battle would just give the Germanians more time to shore up their hastily built fortifications while allowing the Germanian industrial machine to continue without interruption. Not to mention, moving further north would stretch his already tenuous logistical situation even further.

High Command had diverted two of his divisions to fortify a position at Kaiserslautern, both as a forward defense for Saarbrücken and as a jumping off point for future offensives. General Hénault himself had set three divisions to guard the various roads from Koblenz that might threaten his own supply lines. Even so, he still had twenty-five divisions available for the final push on Bonnburg. He had a thousand tanks under his command. He could expect lavish air support, and had direct command of nearly a thousand mages.

The Francois Republic, in its history, had assembled larger armies. Never, though, had it put so much firepower in one place. Nor had it ever combined such firepower with such amazing mobility.

General Hénault respected the Imperial war machine, even as it had disguised itself under the auspices of the Germanian Republic. All the more reason to end this war before the Germanians could hit their stride. If his army could smash through those five day old defenses and begin to put the Rhine industrial area under direct occupation, this war would be halfway over.

Audacity, and again audacity, always audacity!

ooOoo

 _AN2: Bonnburg is Bonn. The other cities mentioned all match the names you can search for on google maps._

 _AN3: Coming up with reasonable war plans and then syncing them to decent story pacing is tricky. Usually I can crib from history, but there isn't a lot out there on what a French blitz into a demilitarized Rhine would look like. With or without magical soldiers. This chapter is my best guess of what the French version of the sickle cut would have been. A force at Kaiserslautern to anchor their flank, troops screening the approaches from Koblenz, and a dash north through the forest towards the prize. The idea is that they are aware of the risk they are taking, doing what they can to mitigate it, and trying to snatch the brass ring ASAP. IRL some German units managed a sustained 60km per day against the Polish, so I'm using that as the metric for what a good day of blitzkrieg will cover._

 _AN4: Also, the actual German WWII doctrine was not to try to smash hard points like this, it was more about flowing around to find easier paths and using combined arms when needed to clear the way. The Francois have landed on something closer to pop culture memetic blitzkrieg, using overwhelming force to smash through resistance on a straight line toward your target. There are merits to both approaches, and IMO pop culture memetic blitzkrieg is actually a decent fit for the IRL French military tradition of trampling over their enemies, which stretches from the heavily armored knight of the middle ages all the way through to Napoleon's columns._


	41. Chapter 41

_AN1: Here we go..._

ooOoo

 _March 19, 1941_

Koenig moved carefully through the chaos of the Russy camp. The quarter moon was dim in the sky above, but the fires of the supply depot gave more than enough light to see by. While most of the crowd was moving towards the fire, either to help or to gawk at the spectacle, he was able to pick his way through the stream of people and head for the edge of camp.

To be honest, he was a little disappointed. The stockpile here on the western edge of the Russy Federation hadn't had time to grow to the extent of the great supply depots he'd seen back in Sibyria. He would have liked to give the Rus time to gather more valuable material in one place, but it would be sloppy to try and mingle with the enemy army for too long. Besides, he needed to create widespread chaos.

Fortunately, the guards out west weren't any more observant than the guards in the east, and the goods were just as flammable. Once he'd managed to sneak back out and join the crowd, he hadn't even needed to use any magic to disappear.

The light around him had dimmed considerably by the time he reached the edge of the camp. He bit back a sigh. The fire really didn't measure up.

There should have been a sentry watching the camp's perimeter, but it seemed that Teyanen had arrived ahead of him.

Koenig and the small group with him were soon able to make out the silhouettes of their companions. And their bounty for the night. The Russy Federation still used cavalry troops as scouts and, in a pinch, mounted infantry. While Koenig had been causing trouble, Teyanen's job had been to take advantage of the situation to make off with the best of the stabled horseflesh.

He just loved it when a plan came together. Koenig gave Teyanen a clap on the shoulder before swinging himself up on the lead horse. The rest of the men were mounted soon after, and he led them on a steady trot to the east.

ooOoo

 _March 21, 1941_

Rhiner Neumann had been nervous when the Chancellor had asked him to take command of a mage battalion. The promotion to major was nice and all, but when foreign events were transpiring that were enough to make Tanya von Degurechaff nervous, only a crazy man would be relaxed.

He'd had more practical concerns, too. He hadn't spent enough time hanging out at the Magical Academy to know much about his new subordinates. He also didn't know how they would react to being put under the command of somebody whose essential qualification, to be frank, was his personal history with the chancellor. Fortunately, the aura of the 203rd still had some sway, greatly easing his path.

He'd also been nervous about taking over a full battalion. There he was lucky that commanding mages mostly came down to common sense. He'd led the kids through some training exercises and they'd handled their opponents well enough. He could only hope that they weren't going easy on the old man out of courtesy or respect. The Francois Republic certainly wouldn't have much of either to spare.

Working as the chancellor's bodyguard had been the perfect job. All he'd had to do was follow her around all day. Nobody in the country wanted to take a shot at her, and if somebody had been crazy enough to do it, his only job would've been to try to arrest the poor fool before the chancellor killed him. He'd enjoyed regular meals, he'd gotten a hot shower every day, and he'd gone to sleep every night in his own bed.

Commanding a battalion in peacetime wasn't too much of a change. He'd had to move to military housing, but he still had hot meals and a hot shower every day, and he always got to sleep in his own bed. He even got to order the kids around and show off in front of Birgit. It was a pretty decent job. In peacetime.

Now that war had broken out, he found himself hovering over the village of Witterschlick in the company of eighty other mages, maintaining control of the airspace over the defenses blocking the path to Bonnburg. All well and good, if not for the eight hundred enemy mages that had just flown into view. They were still far out of range, but mages could cover ground in a hurry.

"Rhine control, this is Fairy 01," Neumann radioed in, "we have visual on Francois Republic mages. Over."

The kids in his battalion had been honored to be given the call sign that used to belong to the Argent. Neumann hadn't had the heart to tell them how much she had hated it.

 _"Rhine control, roger. Fairy 01, maintain position, over."_

Neumann clicked his tongue. If one of those paper pushers back at headquarters had screwed up the schedule, there was a real danger that this could turn into a pure mage on mage fight. That was the last thing he wanted. Claiming that one Germanian soldier was worth ten enemies was for the propaganda department and maybe the Argent Silver. It wasn't supposed to be the basis for military planning.

"Rhine control, this is Fairy 01," Neumann replied. "If our escorts don't arrive soon, we might end up dancing by ourselves. Over."

 _"Fairy 01, this is Rhine Actual,"_ the familiar voice of Mattheus Weiss said, recognizable even over the military radio. _"Relax, this operation has been meticulously planned. I'm jealous that you get to participate in it. Over."_

"You could always come take my spot," Neumann said. "Over."

He would have pushed harder for promotions over the last few years if he'd realized that generals got to stay in the safety of the back lines even after the shooting started. Well, he would have if he'd realized the shooting was going to start up again.

 _"After the work you put in to whip that battalion into shape?"_ Weiss asked. _"I couldn't live with myself. Over."_

To live with yourself, you had to live through the battle. Something that was much easier from the general's chair. Fortunately, Neumann was spared from the need to respond by the drone of engines finally coming closer from behind.

He had to admit, the air force might take their sweet time, but they could also put on a show. Over two hundred of the new Fw 190 planes were flying towards them, divided into two groups. Half flew above them, taking the usual role of top cover. The other half flew by just below Neumann's group, braving the flight level that was usually considered to be magical territory. Each group of one hundred was spread out across the sky in a slightly ragged rectangle, but no plane was more than a hundred meters ahead of any other. Each plane had two missiles hanging from each wing.

Neumann led his men to follow after the planes had swept by. They fell into formation with little fuss, which allowed him to turn his attention to the eighty-first mage in their flight group. Birgit Johansson, American aerial mage and, officially, a neutral observer of the fight to come.

She wouldn't be firing a shot in the coming battle, just taking a recording with her flight orb that she'd be allowed to share with the Americans. This had been arranged in exchange for some kind of political concession. At least, he thought so. The letter he'd received notifying him of the arrangement had not only been signed by the chancellor herself, her signature had been accompanied by a little doodle of the chancellor winking at him and giving a thumbs up.

It was a little scary how much the woman's mood had improved since the war started.

Neumann shook off the thought. "Make sure you're recording. You don't want to miss this."

"Oh?" Birgit asked, smiling. "What should I watch for?"

"The end of an era," Neumann said, before returning his attention to the air ahead. The Germanian airplanes had put about half a kilometer between themselves and his mages, and they were still about five kilometers from the Francois Republic's forces. He took a moment to assess the battlefield.

Now that they were closer, he could pick out more details. The lead element of the enemy forces was made up of four battalions of Frankish mages. Above and behind them was a great mass of colonial mages, sprinkled here and there with the white faces of Frankish officers. Both groups were maintaining their altitude right around 3,000 meters, just as Neumann was. The Frankish airplanes were streaming overhead at six thousand meters, a mix of fighters and bombers that stretched backwards as far as he could see.

No doubt they wanted to sweep the Germanians from the skies and get to work dismantling the fortifications below. The airplanes were set on a direct course against the higher flying group of Germanian planes. The mage force, though, would have to get through the lower group of Germanian airplanes before they could come to grips with Neumann's forces.

Traditionally, the key for a mage facing off against a fighter plane was patience. Your average mage could put a lethal explosive spell on an airplane from about seven hundred meters. Maybe eight hundred, if they were charging at each other head on. Meanwhile, the plane's guns couldn't seriously threaten a mage until they got inside five hundred meters, at least. So the key from the mage's point of view was to maintain a stable firing platform, put together a solid explosive spell, and then hold your fire until the airplane entered killing range.

Well, that, and to make sure everybody didn't all pick out the same target. No doubt the Francois were scrambling to assign a relatively even number of mages to fire at each of the oncoming planes.

Usually airplanes would look to make use of their altitude advantage, either forcing mages to climb to them or swooping in to attack in a steep dive. It was harder to hit an enemy coming in from above, and the speed from the dive helped the planes to get away after they took their shot.

The one group in the air that was breaking from established doctrine were the Germanian fighters that kept to a straight and level course straight at the enemy mages. Given their numerical disadvantage, it would usually be suicide. If any of the Frankish mages were put off by the strange behavior, it didn't show in their response. They stayed in their tight formations and held their fire, waiting for the right moment to strike.

The traditional calculation, of course, didn't account for Germania's air to air missile program. Neumann had seen a demonstration and received a rather chilling technical briefing. The new missile could be fired from two, even three kilometers away and still present a lethal threat to its target.

It wasn't a perfect mage killer. Between illusions and an aerial mage's range of motion, a mage who knew what he was up against could make it very hard for a pilot to put a missile on target. A mage with no idea what was coming, though... well, Neumann was just glad that he was on the right side of the upcoming barrage.

The Germanian fighters held their fire as they closed within three kilometers. There was no action as they swept inside two and a half klicks. The order must have been to fire at two kilometers, as the first volley of missiles flew out as they reached that distance. One hundred missiles, streaking towards the oncoming mages. Then another hundred, and another, and another.

Some of the Frankish mages started trying to dodge, but it was far too late. The first round of missiles obscured their formation in a hail of shrapnel and a shroud of smoke. They were still flying forward though, breaking back into sight just in time for the next volley of missiles to strike home. It was like watching a macabre stop motion photograph play out on an enormous canvas.

Up above, the fighters had loosed their missiles on the Frankish aircraft, but Neumann's focus was on the magical fight. A great number of mages had just been blasted from the sky, and the remainder had lost most of their sense of organization. Individual mages were engaged in their own evasive maneuvers, and many had simply stopped advancing or even started to run as the missiles struck home.

"Triangle formation, one, two three," Neumann ordered, "hit that group high on our right."

With that, company one would take point, while two and three would guard their flanks. The first order of business was to take out anyone trying to get the enemy organized. They were still outnumbered, after all, even after the devastating opening strike. In order to secure victory and, more importantly, keep himself safe, they needed to keep the enemy scattered and pursue defeat in detail.

The low block of Germanian airplanes, their work done for the moment, dropped their missile launchers broke off to the sides. They'd circle back and join the scrum once they had a chance to gain altitude. Neumann's battalion, like a dog let off the leash, accelerated forward. A few heartbeats later, the other Germanian mage battalion followed suit, heading for the most organized group of enemies on the left.

Neumann, for his part, slowed down along with the rest of his command platoon. They'd keep their distance and supervise the battle. If there was one thing that made his second stint in the military bearable, it was the invention of the command platoon. He couldn't imagine what he would have done if he had to keep everybody organized while he was himself under fire.

"What was that?" Birgit asked, as they floated motionless.

"I told you, the future," Neumann said. Without taking his eyes off the action, he waved down the protest he knew was coming. "I'm sure Weiss has a brochure for you. I'll just say, those guys in research and development are crazy bastards, but I'm glad they're on our side."

Encouraging note from the Chancellor or not, Neumann wasn't about to start handing out classified information in the middle of a battlefield. Most of the information was pretty much out of the bag, now that she had a recording of the missiles in action, but he'd leave it for somebody else to decide exactly which details should be shared with the Americans.

"Major!"

Neumann turned to look over at Lieutenant Meyer, one of the kids that he'd tabbed for the command track. He then followed where he was pointing to see a Germanian fighter plane diving down from above, a Francois fighter on its tail. The Germanian had dropped his missiles and was pushing his plane hard, but the enemy chasing him was getting dangerously close.

"I'm on it," Neumann said.

He brought his rifle to his shoulder and took aim. The Germanian plane was just diving down past them, about a kilometer away. The chancellor would have snapped off a piercing shot from the hip and taken the enemy pilot out with a bullet through the head, but he knew his limitations.

He prepared an explosive spell. The Germanian plane continued on its way. Just a heartbeat before the pursuer was in his sights, he pulled the trigger.

He'd muffed it pretty badly. The bullet hit the enemy plane in its tail, rather than the engine. Fortunately, he'd put enough into the spell that the ensuing explosion broke off the back third of the plane, sending it spiraling into a terminal dive.

Neumann lowered his rifle and sighed. Either he was getting older or the planes were getting faster. Maybe both.

He turned to reassess the state of the fight. The enemy mages had been thoroughly scattered. The hammer blow from the missiles and the pressure from clearly superior Germanian mages had dissolved their organization and forced every man into an individual fight for survival. The ongoing dogfight up above, meanwhile, was starting to drift lower as time went on. He activated his communication spell.

"Companies two and three, you're free to pursue by platoon," Neumann ordered. "Company one, you're up here with me to look out for lost airplanes. Let's clean things up."

He didn't want to turn the kids completely loose to chase after the enemy as individuals. It was their first real fight, after all. As long as they stuck together in groups of four, though, they shouldn't have any trouble.

The neat triangle of thirty six mages broke up, twelve of them flying back to join him while the other twenty four broke into their six individual platoons to chase down the remnant of the Frankish mage force. Neumann waited until the first company reached him before giving his next instructions.

"Spread out a bit, and look for any of our planes that are in trouble," Neumann said. "Remember, let your target come to you. Wait until they're in range before you fire."

The advice was still good for their side of the fight. Eventually, the enemy would have their own missiles and somebody would have to come up with a better plan. He intended to secure a safe job down on the ground long before that day came to pass, though.

ooOoo

General Hénault sat in his command center, a tent nestled in the edge of the Eifel forest, and did not drum his fingers on the table. Nor did he tap his foot. He instead maintained a confident posture as he gazed serenely at the bank of monitors and transmitting equipment his staff used to keep him apprised of the progress of the battle. When he finally found himself unable to remain still, he drew a cigarette from his pocket and lit it before taking a calming drag.

The war could be decided in a matter of moments. He had ordered a general assault. Army, mages, and airplanes, all working together. After a brief artillery barrage to soften up the enemy positions, the army had pushed forward as a whole. Only the center would be making a real effort to breach the enemy's defenses. They had been given two thirds of the tanks and would have a whole aerial mage corps clearing the way for them. The remaining armor had been divided between the wings, who would focus on screening the advance and helping to exploit the breakthrough made by the center.

The units in the air would also be focusing their efforts for best effect. With eight hundred mages against eighty, all contesting a small area, the Germanian magical advantage would be nullified. And that was before factoring the mass of planes that would be helping fight for control of the air and dropping bombs on the Germanian defenses.

It was an overwhelming concentration of force, the type to shatter any who tried to stand in its way.

And yet.

And yet, as he kept one eye on the display tracking the magical battle, the only change over time was the melting away of his own men. The red dots representing Germanian mages moved with dizzying speed, but never seemed to vanish.

And yet, he received no reports of any breakthroughs at the point of attack.

Hénault took another pull of his cigarette. He still had reserves that he could commit to the fight. It would be a tragedy to fail to act when he ought to act. Unfortunately, it would be equally tragic to act before he ought.

"General," a radio operator said, turning away from his machine to give his report, "the aerial observer near Koblenz has failed to report in."

He had ordered that planes were to be in the air at all times, watching for movements towards the Eifel forest or towards Kaiserslauten. It was a vital task to provide an early warning of any possible attack on their supply line. Unfortunately, the natural arrogance of his fighter pilots had seen all too many of them take on the self-appointed mission of testing the Germanian air defenses over the Rhine. It seldom ended well.

"Direct another observer into the area," Hénault said, before finally giving in to temptation. "What news of our own aerial battle?"

That prompted a reaction from the man in front of the magical detector. He was also responsible for handling communication with the forces of the air. As soon as he turned and their eyes met, Hénault knew he wouldn't be reporting good news.

"It's... it's bad, sir," he said. "The enemy used a new weapon to start the battle. Most of the colonials have fled. What we have left won't stand up to the enemy mages for long."

Hénault nodded, then took a drag off his cigarette. As he was going to ask for more information, he was interrupted by the man in charge of communicating with the ground troops.

"Sir!" he called out. "The Germanians are attacking our left flank!"

"Well, now," Hénault said, relaxing at the prospect of open battle, "let's see how they fight without the benefit of a prepared position."

The answer, it turned out, was that they fought pretty damn well. It wasn't a surprise, of course, that the Germanians knew how to fight. What was a surprise was the sheer volume of fire that was described in report after report, not to mention the amount of enemy armor that was participating in the attack. Unless the intelligence reports had been badly wrong about the Germanian armored fleet, they had put almost everything they had into the attack. It was an unusually bold move for them.

Initially, he had harbored some hope that the attack might peter out, possibly creating a chance for his left flank to counterattack and break through. That soon proved to be wishful thinking, as every move to update the map in front of him depicting the battle had his own forces bending back while the Germanians kept moving forward. His army, which had initially been laid out in a straight line, gradually came to resemble a right angle, bending backwards from the point of the Germanian attack.

The strangest thing was that the Germanians continued pushing on their initial line of advance. They seemed to be making no effort to bend around and attack his center from behind. Indeed, some of his troops even reported that they saw Germanian infantry digging trenches, more interested in shoring up the defense of their newly gained territory than pushing home the attack.

Most peculiar. Putting so many forces into the attack should have weakened their defenses in the center. He didn't understand how they could do such a thing without any effort to pivot and take pressure off of their defenders.

Hénault stood, stepping forward to the radio operator and asking to be put through to General Poulin, the man in charge of the central assault. "General, your progress?"

"Slow," came the reply. "We could use some reinforcement to speed things along."

Hénault thought for a moment. For a proud man like Poulin to ask for reinforcements outright, the attack must have nearly ground to a halt. He could send in the reserves, but it would be dangerous to overcommit while the Germanians were menacing their flank so effectively. He could also send forward only his magical reserves in an armored car. Asking them to clear out the fortifications while the Germanians controlled the sky would mean almost certain death, but creating a breakthrough right now might be worth it.

After a moment's thought, he shook his head. It was still too soon.

"Keep pressing forward with what you have, general."

"Yes, sir."

At least Poulin still sounded confident that he would succeed, eventually. As long as they could break through to the Rhine industrial area, it wouldn't matter if the fighting had taken longer than he would have liked.

Hénault sat back down. The battle was still in the balance, but for now it was up to the men on the ground to show their valor and decide the course of history.

An hour passed. The battle was no closer to being decided. His center was fighting hard for every step forward. Men, artillery, and tanks were able to make progress, but without mages to clear the way it was agonizingly slow. Meanwhile, the Germanian push on their left had extended to the fringes of the Eifel forest itself. Hénault had shifted his men back to ward off any attempt to turn their line, and sent skirmishers to guard against infiltrators who might try to use the forest to their advantage. Both had reported the same thing: the Germanians were content to dig in and exchange desultory long range fire, showing no interest in pressing their attack.

It seemed the enemy, just like him, was waiting for a sign. Waiting for something to disrupt the equilibrium.

Disaster came in the form of a frantic radio operator.

"General! Kaiserslautern is under heavy assault!"

Hénault sprang to his feet. He looked at the map. It made no sense for the Germanians to attack Kaiserslautern while they faced utter defeat in the north, unless-

"General! Forces out of Koblenz are hitting our screening forces. They aren't sure how long they can hold on, sir!"

Hénault nodded, finding a calm settling over him as it finally clicked into place. The missing aerial observers. The Germanian efforts to fortify their newly gained positions. They weren't interested in a flanking assault. They wanted to build a pocket.

For a moment, he felt the wild urge to commit the reserves to the center and order an all out assault. If they could break through, if the men behind them could hold on, the battle could still be salvaged. Not to mention his reputation.

It was an irresponsible thought, and he tamped it down as his reason reasserted itself. Without a secure supply line, breaching the enemy defenses was meaningless. The might of his armored units would let them run wild, but only until they ran out of fuel. Any damage they could do would be a pittance compared to the loss of an entire army.

They had stepped into a trap. Now, the question was whether they could extricate themselves without suffering too much damage.

"Send General Poulin the order to retreat," he ordered. "The right wing is to support him and retreat along with him. Once he's disengaged from the enemy, our reserves are to engage the Germanian flanking forces on our left to give the left wing time to withdraw."

For a moment, the staff around him was frozen in shock. Hénault gave them a sharp look. "Gentlemen! We will not win the war today for the Francois Republic. If we act quickly, though, we will not lose it, either."

That prompted a round of salutes and a bustle of activity as the great machinery of the army began to adjust itself to move in reverse. The fighting men under his command would hate the idea of retreat, when they had put so much effort into breaking through, but they were good soldiers. They could be trusted to carry out a retreat without turning into a rout, as long as Hénault could provide even half-decent leadership.

He studied the map with an internal grimace. They'd have to cover over a hundred kilometers of bad road through rough terrain just to reach the Moselle. Assuming the rest of the army could hold the bridges over the Moselle. What a mess. If they could make it, preserve the army and their toehold in Germania, the Francois Republic would still hold an advantage in the war. If they couldn't, well... they'd better make it.

His only consolation was that their pursuers would be forced to cover the same lousy terrain. It would also be his turn to seed the forest with traps and ambushes to slow down the foe. Although that might not do much, depending on the balance of magical forces.

"General," the report came, and if he were a superstitious man Hénault would have cursed the direction of his thoughts, "the enemy mages have formed up and are moving towards our location. At least two battalions."

"Send the reserve mages to engage them," he ordered. A battalion of mages with another battalion of colonials in support should at least buy some time. "Pack up the headquarters for immediate evacuation."

General Hénault didn't stand on ceremony, grabbing a map before leaving the tent at a brisk walk. It was the work of a moment to find a command car with a decent radio and direct the driver to leave immediately. Under the cover of the forest and free of any magical emissions, he should be able to slip away and continue to coordinate the retreat.

He held onto that thought for about half a kilometer before a shot from above took out the car's engine. Hénault sighed, then stepped out of the car. As a team of mages descended from on high to take him into custody, he took some solace in the fact that his army was, after all, made up of well trained, well equipped, and valiant soldiers. They should be able to drag themselves out of the trap without the help of the man who had led them into it.

ooOoo

 _March 21, 1941_

I took a moment to look at the map that General Lergen had prepared. It didn't take a military genius to understand that having all the units in the enemy color surrounded by units in our color was probably good news.

"It worked, then?" I asked, stating the obvious to get the meeting moving. With the attendees being Elya and Visha as well as myself and General Lergen, nobody needed their hand held.

He nodded. "We're still tracking down enemy units that have gone to ground in the Eifel, but the vast majority of the northern invading army has been captured or destroyed."

"And the rest?" I asked, drawing my finger from Kaiserslautern down to Saarbrücken.

"Retreated in good order back to the Francois Republic," he said. "We can expect them to be manning their own fortified positions."

"I suppose it was too much to hope that they'd send all of their soldiers on doomed attacks," I said with a sigh.

"They only took that sort of risk because they thought they could win the war quickly," Lergen said, nodding. "They'll be more cautious, now. We're on the front foot, though. Their defenses will stiffen up as they finish mobilizing, but our forces will be growing in strength as well."

"We're winning, then?" I asked.

He nodded again. "I expect that within six to twelve months the Francois Republic will be unable to conduct combat operations on this continent."

Ordinarily, that would be enough to make a country surrender. Considering what had happened in the last war, though, I could understand why General Lergen had chosen such cautious phrasing.

Knocking a major power like the Francois Republic out of the war in six months or a year would be a major achievement. Unfortunately, it might not be good enough to let us win the war as a whole. Proud as the Pules might be of their eastern defenses, keeping the commies at bay for a whole year was a tall order. We'd undoubtedly have to shift units east to help them out, which would let the Francois Republic make a comeback, which would leave us with too many fronts to cover and not enough troops, if the last war was any guide.

Visha voiced another concern. "In six months, their blockade could really pinch our supplies."

"How is that going?" I asked.

I'd been aware that we were going to face a blockade, but most of my focus had been on the land war. And trying to woo the Legadonians. Much as they hemmed and hawed over whether Carinthia's actions made this an offensive rather than defensive war, I had the feeling that what they really wanted was to get a sense of how we were holding up before they committed. I was hoping that General Lergen's success in beating off the first invasion attempt would get them off the fence.

"It didn't really settle in place until the last couple days," Visha said, "but any drop of oil that we lose will hurt the war effort."

I nodded with a grimace. Trying to run the whole OZEV war machine off the Dacian oil fields would be a nightmare. We might be able to reconfigure our shipping to work around the blockade, but it would be impossible to maintain the same volume.

"It's basically here," she continued, drawing a line with her finger from the border between the Republic and Lothiern to the western edge of Legadonia, "to here. They're relying heavily on aerial surveillance, then sending fast ships out to intercept and redirect freight traffic."

That was troubling. Such courteous behavior made it less likely that they would offend the Unified States or Allied Kingdom. Also, such brazen conduct on the open seas made our navy look pathetic. That was the last thing that I needed when I was trying to look strong in front of Legadonia.

"Can the navy do anything about this?" I asked General Lergen. I knew that I hadn't given the navy the kind of funding that they wanted, but in absolute terms we had still spent a lot of money on them. They ought to at least be able to give the Francois Republic a bloody nose.

"The navy has planned to disrupt the blockade," he replied, "but the weather conditions haven't been right."

The weather conditions we needed to take on the whole Frankish navy was for a whirlpool to spring up out of nowhere and suck the enemy fleet to the bottom. Failing that, I was surprised my admirals were so picky about the weather conditions when it came to sniping at a destroyer or two. Well, I shouldn't micromanage.

"As long as something's planned," I said, tapping on the map along the line Visha had drawn. "This is just embarrassing."

He nodded, and I turned my attention back to the terrestrial section of the map. To win in six to twelve months should have felt satisfying, but I couldn't shake the gut feeling that it was too slow. Unfortunately, I knew that trying to dig into the details of a plan devised by General Lergen in search of inefficiencies was a fool's errand.

It really was too bad that the Francois Republic wouldn't just obediently send out the rest of its armies on the attack to be destroyed. If the whole thing could be decided in the open field, I was confident that we could win the war in six weeks, never mind six months. Unfortunately, we weren't up against morons.

"If only we could tempt them into an attack," I murmured, tapping on the border.

They had taken a chance with their initial invasion because the prize was worth it. Taking hold of the Rhine industrial area would have essentially won the war. Now that their first army had been cut down, it was all too obvious that the Rhine industrial area was out of their reach. There was no other convenient patch of Germanian land that offered the same incredible value, which meant that our enemy would refuse to take any incredible risks.

Sadly, there was no way to shift the Rhine industrial area closer to the border. Assuming that we could arrange such a situation without making the trap blatantly obvious, the cold calculus of war would push the Francois Republic towards trying their luck. If only we could dangle a juicy enough prize in front of them to make them charge out of their defensive line.

Of course, you'd have to be some kind of crazy commie to just pick up a factory and move it according to the needs of the state. Those factories had been built where they were for a reason. If you shifted them around willy-nilly, they'd lose the value that had made them such a great target to begin with.

No, we needed something else. We needed to find something that would make the Francois toss reason to the side and charge. Some kind of mobile lure.

Slowly, the finger I was tapping on the map began to slow, then go still. Damn it, was Being X sticking his nose in again, or was the twisted psyche of the Francois the result of their own environment and trauma? In the end, it didn't really matter, but I tried to be fair when I tallied up the sins I laid at the feet of Being X. Unlike him, I was a creature of reason.

I sighed. "At least I won't have to order a custom sized uniform this time."

Looking for the one person that the Francois Republic would want to capture above all else, throwing aside their sense of self-preservation... the answer was all too obvious.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Koenig picked up Tanya's bloodlust, Weiss her sense of responsibility, and Neumann her desire for a cushy job._


	42. Chapter 42

_AN1: This campaign is going to spawn a lot of alt-history fiction._

ooOoo

 _March 23, 1941_

We ran into the first scout shortly after entering the Francois Republic. As expected, our enemy was keeping an eye on the border area, either to be ready for their future offensives or to spot our own attack. The lone aerial mage took one look at our battalion and immediately flew off in the other direction.

I raised my rifle to my shoulder, thumbing the selector switch at the same time. My old rifle hadn't been able to fire three round bursts. Charging up three explosive spells while maintaining steady flight took a few seconds. By the time I was ready to fire, the target was over a kilometer away. One of the dangers of allowing a dilettante on the battlefield.

Fortunately, he was flying away from me in a straight line. I made a minute adjustment in my aim and pulled the trigger. A moment later three explosions rang out and pieces of the scout were raining down on the countryside below.

I turned to face the man flying beside me, ready to do a bit of preening. Even if I had taken longer to get the shot off than I should have, it was still a nice piece of shooting. Neumann, for his part, just looked silently out towards the newly-empty airspace that my target had been occupying.

He'd been out of sorts ever since I told him his battalion would be coming on this mission and he'd have to leave his American girlfriend at home. I felt bad to be separating the happy couple, but letting her tag along would undermine my diplomatic strategy. The Empire had gotten in trouble because the reputation of its fearsome military had caused potential allies or neutrals to instead band together as its enemies out of fear. One way I planned to head off that sort of development was by giving the Americans a front row view of the Francois Republic's aggression and our own proportional defensive response.

Sending them a recording of our own counter-invasion was obviously off the table. Not to mention that the woman in question would probably feel a lot less comfortable tagging along with our invading forces than she did filming a defensive fight.

"Looks like the new rifle was worth the development costs," I said, looking to turn his thoughts in a more productive direction, such as praising me.

The LmG-40 was, as far as I knew, the first rifle in the world to be developed specifically for the use of aerial mages. It fired a heavier bullet at a faster speed than my old Mondragón. It was also more reliable, though not quite to the same absurd degree as the StG-38. Of course, the recoil was quite intense, but that was hardly a problem for any decent aerial mage. The extra range and stopping power were well worth it.

Also, the same rifle had been fitted with optical sights and issued to our infantry to be used by snipers. The cost savings and streamlined logistics, however, minor, were a balm to my soul.

"Chancellor," Neumann said, sounding a little nervous, "weren't we supposed to let the scouts live so they'd know you were coming?"

Whoops. My old instincts had taken over once an enemy mage was in sight, blinding me to the big picture.

Unfortunately, it was beneath the dignity of my office to dismiss the matter by hitting the side of my head and making a cute expression. Instead, I found myself scratching the back of my head and forcing a chuckle.

"Well," I said, "we can't make it too obvious that we're letting them get away."

Neumann just nodded. I wasn't entirely sure if he genuinely agreed or if he was just showing deference for my position.

At any rate, I was in luck, as we soon ran in to three more aerial mages. Quite possibly the platoon-mates of the mage I had shot, summoned by his distress call. They also didn't dally once they had gotten close enough for a good look. This time, I made sure that my explosive spells went off a good distance behind them. As they vanished into the distance, I nodded in satisfaction.

"There," I said, "now the Francois Republic will know that I'm here."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

I looked down for a moment at the army below. Four divisions of infantry advancing on foot, accompanied by horse drawn artillery and a bare handful of tanks. With one battalion of mages in the air and another two battalions marching with the soldiers down below, it wasn't exactly something that would strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. The only visually impressive units were the men wielding flamethrowers to reduce a farmer's field to ash. The rest of the army had reached the first small town on this side of the border and were busy rooting out the residents. Once the refugees were on the road heading westward, the whole town would be put to the torch.

General Ziegler was in overall command. According to our strategic design, we would be looking to find good defensive terrain somewhere between thirty and fifty kilometers deep into enemy territory. The bulk of the expeditionary force would be put to work digging in, while smaller, more mobile units would be setting fire to the surrounding countryside. Ideally, we'd be able to establish an airbase somewhere nearby. The airplanes would eventually contribute in the decisive battle, but in the mean time they could drop incendiaries in the picturesque forested regions that were all around us.

Neumann, of course, was a rational man. If he were in charge of the Francois Republic's grand strategy, he would ignore such basic provocations while shoring up his own defensive line. The calculated move to maximize the chance of their side winning the war was to drag things out as long as possible, forcing our side to invest resources on the western front that would ultimately allow the commies to roll in from the east.

The key to this little adventure was Visha's insight. The Francois Republic was not interested in maximizing their side's chance of victory. They were in an alliance of convenience with the Russy Federation, but their ultimate goal was to grab land for themselves. That is, the scenario where the Molotov-Ribéry won the war purely as a result of Russy conquest while they were crouched inside their own borders was effectively a loss for them. Thus, they would be happy to throw away the chance of that sort of "win" by taking a calculated risk that would allow them to seize spoils for themselves if it worked out.

Even more so considering the state of public opinion. I'd had Elya keeping a close watch on the sentiments of the Frankish citizens since the beginning of the year. Support there for war was broad, but not exactly deep. They had loved the Ildoan intervention, a quick use of military force that resulted in an easy victory. They loved the idea of war against Germania on the same terms. As soon as they were asked about fighting a grinding battle or gutting out another few years of occupation, though, the support evaporated.

The government could engage in whatever censorship they liked, but the news of their early defeat and then my leading an army to rampage freely around the country would leak out eventually. There was a real danger that the public would turn on their leaders once that happened.

Also, as I'd learned in the last war, the Francois Republic didn't have calm and rational men in charge of their war effort. In the face of my presence personally leading an army that was lighting their country on fire, there was no way that those hotheads would be able to resist the urge to send their army out to destroy the interlopers.

"Don't worry," I said, "I didn't come all this way just to avoid doing paperwork."

The major obstacle I'd faced in kicking off this operation had been Visha's recalcitrance. I'd almost been forced to call the whole thing off before I remembered that she wasn't the only person in the room who could deploy puppy dog eyes in support of her argument. In the end, she'd agreed that she could take over and keep the government running for a week. She'd made me promise to be back before the week was up.

I'd figured that if the Francois Republic didn't come after us inside a week, they wouldn't come after us at all.

ooOoo

 _March 24, 1941_

Pierre-Michel de Lugo hadn't had many good days since that hot-headed fool Muzzioli had plunged his nation into a war they were only half ready for. He'd had a few proud days, as his standing army leaped into action to launch an invasion in record time. He'd had anxious days, as he waited to hear how that army would handle its first test of true adversity. He'd had dark days, when it became clear that his army had failed its test.

This morning was a new low. The east wind brought the smell of smoke drifting through the streets of fair Parisee, driving home the reality of the reports that he had hoped were only the product of some sort of battlefield hallucination.

He started his day by meeting with the military's high command. As was so often the case, the leading voices were Defense Minister Marcel Pelletier and General René Fournier. The two men had been butting heads since the beginning of de Lugo's second presidency, sharpening each other's arguments as the two of them effectively set the agenda for the Francois Republic's military development. Some days they could be downright amicable. With the Devil of the Rhine herself leading the invasion of their country, though, tempers were running high.

"We must drive the Devil out of our country!" Fournier insisted.

General Fournier was the senior general on the army's general staff. He had a wiry build, and age had leached the color out of his hair, but he still had the energy of a man half his age. If de Lugo had not been elected president, he would have been in line for selection as the Vice Minister of Defense. After being passed over, he had never been shy about criticizing the man who was selected in his place. So long as his efforts ultimately strengthened the Francois Republic, de Lugo didn't mind letting him have his say.

"Must we?" Pelletier asked.

Marcel Pelletier had been serving under de Lugo since before the Great War. Solidly built and placid in demeanor, he was one of de Lugo's most trusted subordinates and a capable military leader. If he lacked the spark of genius to propel him to true greatness, he also lacked the ego and hubris that so often came attached to a general's stars. Without a sober hand like Pelletier at the wheel, de Lugo would never have felt comfortable taking the risks inherent in the Francois Republic's aggressive military strategy.

"Of course!" Fournier insisted. "Her presence is an outrage!"

"It is an outrage," Pelletier agreed. "And if it were a week ago, and our army were whole, I wouldn't hesitate."

A momentary silence fell around the room as Pelletier touched so directly on their recent loss. What he had said was the simple truth. The Republic had lost a great deal of its ability to project force when its northern thrust had been so thoroughly cut off and destroyed.

"Surely," Fournier said, rallying himself, "we still have the strength to beat back four divisions."

"In two weeks, once we have fully mobilized? Easily," Pelletier replied. "Today? Assembling a force that can achieve a decisive victory over an army led by the Devil of the Rhine? It would leave us dangerously over-extended."

He paused, and de Lugo took the opportunity to gauge the mood of the room. Even the most ardent supporters of Fournier's push for aggressive actions were taken aback by the direct admission of weakness.

"We must also consider what she hopes to accomplish by her actions," Pelletier continued.

There he touched on the source of de Lugo's own hesitation. All too often throughout the Great War, Degurechaff had pursued gambits that looked risky or insane only to deliver yet another great victory to the Empire. Some of that was due to her great skill as a mage, but only those blinded by hatred of the woman would ignore her tactical acumen.

"She knows her cause is doomed," Fournier said, "so she is lashing out while she can."

Looking around the table, Fournier seemed to have few takers for his theory. Good. It was good for a military commander to have confidence in himself and his troops, so long as it was tempered by a certain amount of healthy caution. It would be comforting to dismiss her actions as a mere temper tantrum, but dangerous. After all, the woman didn't rise to the position of Chancellor by mere happenstance.

"Or that is what she wants us to believe," Pelletier said, folding his hands in front of himself.

"To what end?" Fournier snapped. "There's no point talking ourselves around in circles."

"There's still much left unanswered," Pelletier replied, "as to the end of our expeditionary force."

The Francois Republic had been fortunate to have a good portion of its mage force escape from the battle on the Rhine. The mages were valuable in themselves and also brought back with them recordings of what had happened. Unfortunately, the mages who had escaped the Devil's grasp had, to a man, fled shortly after battle was joined. Thus, while Frankish military planners knew how the battle had begun, and knew that their army had ultimately been captured or destroyed, they could only speculate as to how much damage it had done in the mean time.

If they had dished out as much damage to the Germanian war machine as their loss had cost the Francois Republic, then Degurechaff's actions took on a much different light than if the expeditionary force had simply been lost. Unfortunately, while they wouldn't have answers for at least a few more days, a decision had to made now.

On the other hand, de Lugo misliked the idea that their plans should be molded around Degurechaff's state of mind. The whole point of the Molotov-Ribéry pact was for the Francois Republic to take its rightful place in the world order. To do that they needed to act, not react.

He stood. The other men stayed silent, waiting to hear his decision.

"Our task is not to divine Degurchaff's thoughts. It is to secure the position of the Francois Republic," de Lugo said. "If our army was utterly defeated, then the war is lost unless we can turn this trap back upon the Germanians and capture their leader."

The loss of an army without doing any corresponding damage was bad enough. What was worse was what it said about the relative quality of their armed forces. If that truly was the case, he should only be grateful that Degurechaff had presented a means of salvaging the situation.

"If our army did lasting damage to Germania, then the war is on level footing," de Lugo continued, "and we can afford to take a risk in order to seize the advantage."

He brought his fist down on the table for emphasis.

"Chancellor Degurechaff has come to our country looking for a fight. We will give it to her."

Ultimately, the Francois Republic could not achieve its aims by standing on defense. They needed to stake their claim as one of the leading lights of Europe by taking down the Germanian war machine. Degurechaff had presented them with a shortcut. Even if she intended a trap, the army would simply have to prevail.

His goal was ever and always the pursuit of victory. He had no interest in respectable failure.

ooOoo

 _March 26, 1941_

Koenig's horse shifted underneath him. He patted its neck and murmured a bit of nonsense to help it settle down. The beast was picking up on his own excitement. Fortunately, it hadn't shifted forward, so he was still hidden along with another dozen mounted men in the shadows of the forest.

They'd caused a little trouble here and there over the last few days. Nothing like that first big hit on the supply depot. It wasn't that they'd run into any resistance, they'd just never run into an opportunity. To be fair, he'd been more focused on moving deeper into Russy territory than anything else, wanting some distance from the buildup of troops near the border. As exciting as it was to take on the enemy army directly, it would be dangerous to make a habit out of that sort a thing.

Yesterday, they'd run across a double-tracked railroad bridge across a small river out in the countryside. Just the sort of thing that could snarl up an army's logistics if it went missing. Unfortunately, due to the nature of their mission, they weren't carrying any kind of demolition charges. Taking the bridge apart with magic would be detected from tens of kilometers away.

After consultation, he'd decided that they would need to get a little creative for this one. The first step was to ride east along the railway, towards the source of supplies. Naturally, they'd kept their distance from the rails themselves, not wanting to draw too much attention. Eventually they'd found a nice forested hill overlooking the tracks from about half a kilometer away. Then they settled in for step two: wait.

By this point they'd abandoned their Russy uniforms and were dressed in a motley assortment of purloined clothing. Koenig hadn't had a proper shave in almost a week. He was certain that he wouldn't have looked at all out of place in a bandit troop. Probably appropriate, all things considered.

Once his horse had settled down, he returned his gaze to the tracks below. Despite his vigilance, he heard the train before he saw it, the whistle announcing its presence for kilometers around.

He held the horse steady and waited for it to come into sight. He squinted, tapping into a mild vision enhancement spell. The locomotive was pulling a dozen box cars. Behind them, though, were the tankers he'd been waiting for. With a shout, he set his horse moving on down the side of the hill. His men followed behind in a storm of thundering hooves.

He approached the tracks at an angle. Even running flat out, the horse couldn't quite match the pace of the train. Fortunately, Koenig wasn't entirely constrained by the limits of flesh and blood. He pulled his feet out of the stirrups, carefully hauled himself into a crouch on top of the saddle, and then strained the stealth casting abilities of his orb to the very limits to leap forward. Behind him the horse stumbled and fell. Ahead of him the back edge of a boxcar dominated his vision.

He reached out to grab the ladder hanging off the back of the car and hauled himself in. He looked back to confirm that the men following him had made it onto the train as well, then ducked back as a bullet punched through the train car behind him. Carefully forming a shield over his face, he stuck his head out again, looking forward this time. It seemed one of the cars up ahead was being used to transport troops, and one patriotic soldier was leaning out a window to try and shoot down Koenig's band of train robbers.

Koenig drew his pistol and snapped off a few shots. None hit home, but it was enough to convince the soldier to pull back into the car. That done, he holstered his pistol and moved back to get both hands on the ladder before activating a communication spell.

"Everybody make it?" he asked. Receiving a chorus of affirmations, he smiled. "Meet me up top."

He clambered up the ladder and crouched down to wait. It didn't take long before the twelve men of his first company had gathered around him on top of the train. The wind whipping around them was unpleasant, but hardly worth noticing for an aerial mage.

"There are soldiers riding two cars up from us. You'll need to clear them out," Koenig instructed. "I'll hurry forward to deal with the engineer."

They nodded. Koenig stood up without any further ado and began trotting forward. His men followed him as he leaped onto the next car forward. As they approached the car full of soldiers, Koenig just kept moving while the men behind him began to work their way down and plan their assault. He went ahead and fired a few rounds down through the roof to serve as a distraction.

A few blind shots went up through the roof behind him. Further back, he heard more gunfire as his men started their assault. Koenig smiled, but he didn't have time to do much more. The plan had some margin for error, but not much.

Koenig didn't break stride as he jumped from car to car. As he reached the last of the box cars, he was plunged into the cloud of smoke coming off the locomotive. He tweaked the shield in front of his face to filter out the worst of it and kept moving. The next jump took him on top of the pile of coal in the tender. Without magically enhanced reflexes the footing would have been impossible. As it was, it was merely challenging.

He jumped down and stepped into the engine compartment to find the engineer was yelling into a radio. Koenig pulled out his pistol and shot out the body of the radio, then brought it to bear on the engineer.

"Slow down the train!"

"Fuck you!"

Koenig sighed. Some people just didn't respond well to a gun in the face.

He punched the engineer square in the nose. As the man staggered back against the wall, Koenig holstered his pistol and drew out his knife. Taking a step forward, he grabbed the engineer by the front of his coveralls and pressed the flat of the blade against the side of his face.

"Slow down the train."

"All right, all right."

Koenig released his grip on the man and gestured with the knife for him to get on with things. As the engineer went to work on the levers in front of him, Koenig received the all clear from his men. Further bolstering his good mood, the train indeed began to slow down. Not a moment to soon, either. The bridge was coming into view.

Just as the engine reached the bridge, Koenig reached over and fully engaged the emergency brake. There was a great screeching noise as the train gradually came to a halt. By the time it stopped, the engine was almost all the way across the bridge. The tanker cars were about halfway across, just where he wanted them.

He grabbed the engineer and hauled him down from the train. He dragged him forward off the bridge and well clear of the train tracks. Ignoring the man's muttered curses, Koenig tore strips from his shirt and used them to bind his hands and feet together. He wasn't about to execute an unarmed civilian if he didn't have to, although he suspected the communist government wouldn't have any such qualms.

Once the man was safely immobilized, Koenig jogged back down the length of the train. He noted on the way that apparently two cars had been set aside to transport soldiers. They wouldn't be causing any more trouble for his mission, though.

By the time he reached the tanker cars, his men were already there, opening valves and letting the oil within flow out to coat the tracks below. One enterprising lieutenant handed Koenig a safety flare, the kind that was supposed to be used to warn oncoming vehicles of an obstruction. Koenig thanked him before sending the rest of the men forward off of the bridge. Second company was already riding into view, leading twelve extra horses along with them. Third company and the rest of the command platoon were on overwatch duty in the forest.

Koenig waited for a moment to give the oil time to spread. He had to step back a few times to avoid being caught in a puddle of the stuff. Once the flow coming out of the tanks began to slow down Koenig went ahead and lit up the road flare. He paused, then fished a cigarette out of his pocket. He lit it up, took a drag, and tossed the flare to land under the open valve of the last tanker.

It lit up nicely. He walked away with a brisk stride, enjoying the feeling of heat behind him that spoke of a job well done.

He mounted the horse that was waiting for him and led the men off at a steady trot. The men up in the forest rode down to fall in with their group. For now, it was important to move quickly. In an hour or two, he'd have to figure out how best to stay out of sight.

While satisfying, this stunt was definitely going to get Russy attention. They'd have to lay low for a little while before embarking on their next bout of sabotage.

Koenig was working out his plans for the next few days in his head when he felt magic being used behind him. He turned back, ready to reprimand his men, only for his eyes to widen as he saw four dots off in the distance rapidly growing larger as what was clearly an aerial mage patrol group drew closer.

For a heartbeat, he was frozen in shock. He'd played cat and mouse with the Rus for months out in the frozen wasteland of Sibyria. He knew for a fact that they had no mages of their own. If they had, he wouldn't have been a tenth as effective out there.

Then he got hold of himself, shaking his head. Reality was what it was. The Major would have slapped him if she'd seen him lose his cool over one little surprise.

Now that he'd had a moment to think, he realized one important fact: these mages didn't know that his team was anything other than horse mounted thugs. He turned forward and activated the communication spell, making doubly sure to keep the spell stealthy as he sent the message to his whole company.

"Nobody go hot until I do."

Rather than jump into an aerial dogfight in the middle of enemy territory, it made more sense to wait for the enemy mages to come to them.

Whoever these mystery mages were, their skills were no joke. They closed the distance between them quickly. The first warning Koenig would have had of their presence were he not a mage would have been the explosive spell that they sent down to detonate directly in front of him.

His horse reared up. Koenig let himself be thrown, rolling to the ground. The rest of his men flowed around him before milling around in confusion as the aerial patrol floated down into view.

One man stayed in the air, keeping his rifle trained on the men on horseback. The other three landed near Koenig as he staggered to his feet. They didn't waste any time with small talk as the leader strode forward, slugging Koenig in the gut before grabbing his hand and moving to twist it behind his back.

Most mages didn't spend much time working on close quarters combat. There was no point when you could easily overcome any non-mage thanks to the advantage of strength and reflex enhancement. Fighting other mages was usually best done from a distance and with the use of a rifle. Still, Koenig had seen the Major take apart enough enemy mages with her bare hands to be drawn to the subject himself. He was still far from matching her natural ease in a fight, but he'd put in enough time to at least consider himself a dedicated hobbyist.

The man leading these communist mages had clearly neglected the topic. A simple shield spell on his forearm let Koenig's hand slip out of his grip without any resistance. His opponent was just starting to sense that something was wrong as Koenig took a firm grip on his knife.

Drawing it free, he activated a mage blade enchantment at the same time. It smashed through the enemy's defensive shell without slowing down. He couldn't even feel the resistance as it passed through his body. Stepping forward, he flipped the knife around into a more natural grip before slashing back the other way. The other two nearby mages were still trying to figure out what had happened and didn't manage so much as a defensive screen before they fell to pieces.

The mage in the air wheeled around to face Koenig as was just starting to bring his rifle to bear when a volley of shots rang out from the men he had just been watching. He was dead before he hit the ground. Koenig nodded in satisfaction before moving to check the leader's body.

Other than the usual sort of things that a man might carry in his pockets, there were two things that caught Koenig's eye. First, an identification badge proclaiming him an agent of the NKVD's Secret Paranormal Directorate. Second, a half melted orb fitted to the man's collar that was a dead ringer for the Type 97. The existence of a previously unknown directorate of the NKVD was bad enough. If all of its agents were outfitted with dual core orbs, that was something that could change the whole course of the war.

Koenig activated the communication spell. "Take anything they were carrying and toss the bodies on the fire. We're calling off the mission early and heading home."

As much as he hated to leave a job half done, the Chancellor needed to know about this as soon as possible.

ooOoo

 _AN2: Tanya was, of course, firing the Luftmagier Gewher, Modell 1940._

 _AN3: Also, if this were an anime, she definitely would have gone through with the tehepero._


	43. Chapter 43

_AN1: Per my pay tree on commitment, expect two chapters per week for the foreseeable future. It won't always be YWPR, but it will always be 4-6k words at my usual quality. FYI, I count weeks Mon-Sun._

ooOoo

 _March 26, 1941_

The Francois Republic held off on taking the bait for longer than I had expected. It wasn't until after my third night in their country that I was woken up by the sound of artillery.

Fortunately, by that time our little expeditionary force was well dug in. Our right was anchored by the Saar river, from which point the line ran southeast until reaching a heavily forested area. Overall, the defensive terrain wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad. We were camped out among a series of rolling hills, facing largely flat terrain. It was the kind of setup that I would have tried to avoid attacking, but it wasn't foreboding enough to ward off the Franks.

Our overarching goal was to hold out long enough for the forces we'd left behind in Germania to make their way south and form a pocket, and also to avoid scaring off the Frankish army before they were surrounded. Mostly, the latter requirement meant that we had to make it seem possible that they might win the magical battle. Since they only brought three hundred mages with them—a roughly even split between colonial and native Franks—our two incognito mage battalions would have to remain in reserve.

Neumann was, of course, in command of aerial operations. I'd been torn over whether I ought to reinstate myself at my old rank or award myself some new rank. In the end, I'd just assigned myself as a special observer attached to Neumann's command platoon. I had put on an aerial mage's uniform free of any rank insignia and limited my decorations to the Silver Wings Assault Badge. It was enough to entitle me to the protection of a uniformed combatant under the laws of war, while the simple appearance kept my image free of any associations with tin pot military dictators. Avoiding the confusion of having two majors in one battalion was an added bonus.

I was impressed with the performance of Neumann's battalion. Our enemies had tried to corral us by splitting into two. One unit had three battalions of Frankish mages and seemed intended to act as the hammer, while the remaining Frankish and colonial mages acted as a slow moving anvil. Whatever their intentions, Neumann led us in a graceful aerial dance around them, staying safely out of range the whole time. He even created a few opportunities for devastating attack runs. Most impressively, he showed restraint and passed those chances by, putting the needs of the mission ahead of his own killer instinct.

I was able to spare some attention to observe the battle below. The Francois Republic had come after us with what looked like fifteen or twenty divisions, along with a decent helping of armored support. We hadn't had enough time to set up serious fortifications, but our defensive lines were at least to the point that the tanks couldn't just roll right through. Without heavy magical support, clearing out our defenses would come down to an infantry slugging match.

Credit to the Franks, they were up for it. Each time we passed over the battlefield, they had pushed just a little farther into our defenses. They had paid the price for every meter. Even as I was lamenting their progress, I saw a flight of Jo 87s pass over the battlefield, their rotary cannons doing a number on the foremost enemy tank. The crew bailed out, scrambling out of the way of the next tank in line as it moved forward to take aim at our most vulnerable bunker. Our defenses weren't to the point of breaking, but they were more strained than I would have liked.

The bulk of our air fleet was elsewhere, working to keep Frankish planes away from the battlefield in general and especially to keep them from spotting our reinforcements. The only air support available was from the improvised landing strip we'd set up behind our defenses.

For their part, the Francois Republic's entire focus in the air was on our battalion. I kept expecting their mages to take advantage of their numbers to break off and attack our ground troops, but they never wavered from their attempts to bring us to battle. My plan to act as bait proved extremely effective, although I had to share the credit with Neumann's ability to keep our battalion dangling right on the edge of being trapped for hours on end.

Our ground troops fought hard even as they gave ground in the face of relentless Frankish assaults. They were finally pushed back to the final defensive line, but still showed no sign of giving up. Salvation came when the forward elements of Romel's army linked up with our left flank in the mid-afternoon. The Frankish army finally had to break off their offensive upon finding themselves under fire from all sides.

With the enemy forces more or less surrounded, our other two battalions of mages were finally allowed into the action. We gave the Frankish mages a pretty good mauling before they fled the battlefield, leaving the ground troops stuck in the jaws of a trap.

The rest of the day was spent digging in to prevent the enemy army from slipping away. I did my part, providing harassing fire from the air in order to help stymie any dangerous counterattacks. By the time evening fell, ending my latest stint of aerial combat, I thought that I had put in a pretty good day's work.

I spent most of the next day in the command tent with Ziegler and Romel. It was the first time that I'd been so close to a battle without taking part in it personally. Conducting warfare by issuing orders at a normal conversational tone of voice while watching attendants push pieces around on a map... I couldn't help the bittersweet feeling that welled up within me. If I'd just had a few more years before the Great War broke out I might have advanced far enough up the ladder that this would have been my only experience of battle.

Well, there was no use of dwelling on what might have been. I kept my regrets to myself and just watched quietly as the Frankish position began to collapse. It was to be expected. Cut off from help or retreat and under intense attack from the air, any troops would have started to waver. This army wasn't the hardened group of elites that had made up their initial invasion force, either. By mid afternoon I was confident that everything would be wrapped up by next morning at the latest.

"General Romel, are the preparations for Operation Red Carpet complete?" I asked, taking advantage of a lull in the action.

He nodded. "One hundred P-50 tanks and one hundred tracked APCs have been set aside, along with trucks carrying enough fuel and spare parts to get to Parisee."

"Excellent. We'll leave at dusk," I said. "I'll also be taking three battalions of aerial mages with me."

Two additional battalions had made the dash south along with Romel. With the Frankish mages knocked out of the fight, they should be more than sufficient to handle whatever tasks might come up as Romel and Ziegler finished cleaning up the pocketed troops.

"Please remember to notify Berun that the operation is a go," I added.

With three aerial mage battalions by my side I would be able to extract myself from any kind of sticky situation, but the non-magical troops under my command wouldn't be so lucky. I wouldn't have risked the embarrassment of getting them killed on a dangerous gamble if I didn't have Elya tilting the odds in my favor.

"Yes, Chancellor," Romel said. He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Chancellor, the risk of this operation compared to the military gains... are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"The Francois Republic has happily gotten drunk on the wine of victory," I said, smiling. "I intend to wake them from their delusions and force them to face the hangover and bar tab."

The force I would be leading, while highly mobile and capable of punching above its weight, was still woefully inadequate when it came to accomplishing any direct military objective. It should be just about the right size, though, for a direct assault on enemy morale.

ooOoo

 _March 27, 1941_

Carl Troeger had always wanted to fly. It was a great disappointment to him as a child when he tested negative for magical ability. Even so, he'd held on to the dream of flight and sought out a recruiter for the Germanian Air Force as soon as he turned eighteen. He'd told the man that he wanted to be a pilot. After being put through a battery of tests, the recruiter had assured him that with his scores he'd be flying fighter planes in no time.

When he'd mentioned his dream during basic training, the instructor had taken one look at him and burst out laughing. Once the man had calmed down, he explained that at his height and size Troeger wouldn't even fit in the Germanian fighter planes. And that the air force wasn't going to entrust one of its precious bombers to the hands of a rookie pilot.

He'd stuck it out through basic training. He wasn't a quitter. But he'd written a letter to his uncle to start sounding out whether he could transfer over to the army and try and make it as a parachute trooper. He didn't think they had any height restrictions, and there was no point being in the air force if he was going to be stuck on the ground.

While he was waiting to hear back, he was told that based on his test scores he could put in for training as a bombardier. He'd gone along with it and found he enjoyed the work. It was an important job, it got him up in the air, and he seemed to have a knack for it. Judging angles, picking the right time to act, it all just came naturally.

By the time he heard back from his uncle he felt a little embarrassed at ever having doubted his future in the air force. Fortunately, it was simple enough to write back and decline his offer to help.

Life in the military during peace time was a steady diet of training and testing. Troeger had a lot to learn in order to perform his duties as both bombardier and navigator, but he'd picked it up quickly. It hadn't taken long before his team had a mortal lock on first place in the base's weekly bombing accuracy competitions. Which was nice, but it didn't mean much more than a free beer every week from the guys in last place.

At least, not until the top scorers were all recruited into a secret project. It all had sounded a bit crazy the first time they told him about it. Who ever heard of aiming a bomb after it had been dropped? But the training had proven reasonably straightforward and, as always, Troeger had a good eye for angles and timing. Soon enough his crew had been topping a new leaderboard, with the new bomb—the FX guidance package, inevitably picking up the nickname 'Fritz'—allowing for accuracy on a level that he previously would have considered a joke.

Improved accuracy or not, it had still been the same old peacetime routine of training, training, testing, and more training. Troeger enjoyed being in the air and he liked the challenge of putting bombs on target, but life in the military wasn't quite as exciting as he'd expected.

Then the Francois Republic invaded.

He had been excited to do his part and drop a few bombs on the invading army. Unfortunately, his crew and their plane, along with the whole experimental bombing wing, were instead transferred up to an airfield in Daneland. They had hurried up there right after the war started. Then they had to wait around without bombing anybody for a few days until they were finally called in for a mission briefing.

The plan called for a bold, sophisticated strike against the Frankish blockade. Troeger had stepped out of the briefing room excited and ready to go. Then they had been told that low lying clouds meant that the operation would have to wait. The next day, another briefing, refreshing their memories from the day before. Then another delay.

Finally, almost two weeks after the war had started, the day dawned bright and clear. Troeger had a good feeling that was confirmed when the control tower told them the mission was a go. After being briefed so many times he had the whole mission memorized, let alone his part in it. For all the times he'd been in the air, he still felt a bit nervous as they took off for the first time with the intent of bombing the enemy.

The cramped seating in the Jo 88 bomber made it relatively easy to talk to each other, but for a good few minutes after they were under way the only sound that filled the cabin was the growl of the engines and the buzz of the propellers clawing through the air. It was their pilot who finally spoke up.

"I'm glad we finally get to take Fritz out to meet some new people. He was going a bit strange, cooped up in the hangar all day."

A veteran of the Great War, Kaspar Alspach had taken the younger members of the crew under his wing, so to speak, as they had come together to learn their trade. He and Troeger were sat almost shoulder to shoulder whenever they were in the air, and had almost been forced by proximity to become friends. It was only natural that he'd make the effort to settle their nerves.

"I'm sure his new friends will be very impressed to meet him."

Gerhard Fieser was the rear gunner and radio man, seated back to back with Troeger. He'd entered the air force at the same time as Troeger and Johan Heuss, the ventral gunner. He was a natural genius with electronic equipment but a lousy skat player.

"Carl just has to make sure introductions go smoothly," Heuss called up from his position, lying on the belly of the plane behind Alspach.

"Yeah, yeah," Troeger said, "Fritz is a good boy, everything will be fine."

The tension drained out of him as the cabin started to feel more like it had during all their training. It was almost enough to make him forget that they were doing anything special until he saw the pair of mages up ahead, using flares to indicate their new heading.

Troeger had mixed feelings about the extravagant use of mages as navigation aids. It was an obvious sign of the importance the navy and air force were both putting on this mission. He was a bit put out to be effectively relieved of his own duties as a navigator, but on the other hand he was relieved not to have to steer them over a featureless ocean by dead reckoning.

He turned his head around and watched the flares disappear into the distance as Alspach put them on their new course. He wondered how the mages felt to be limited to directing traffic. They were probably capable of keeping up with the bomber wing, but the brass had emphasized that magic was not to be used anywhere that enemy detection was even remotely possible until the attack began.

Besides the mages off in the distance, he could also see the rest of their wing. All told, twelve bombers were carrying guided bombs to their rendevous with the Frankish navy. Another two bombers had been specially modified to bring a more magical cargo along. All were Jo 88s, and the twin engine bombers were making good time, even with Fritz bolted to the undercarriage to disrupt their aerodynamics.

It wasn't long before the Germanian navy's lone aircraft carrier came into view, surrounded by a protective huddle of six destroyers. All thirty six of the Count Bützow's Bf 109 fighter planes were already circling in midair, waiting for their arrival. The last of the Jo 87s were still waiting to take off. The poky dive bombers would be part of the second wave of attacks.

The fighters now took the lead, accelerating enough to put a bit of space between themselves and Troeger's wing. Even with the ungainly missile pods under each wing, the Bf 109 was a beautiful machine. Troeger couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy as he watched them flit through the air. It was easier to shake off the feeling than it might have been a month ago. After all, the fighter planes might look impressive in flight, but they couldn't do much to an enemy warship.

Troeger wasn't just admiring the pretty planes. He'd had it pounded into his head time after time during training that everybody on a bomber was on lookout duty. Tearing his gaze away from the fighters up ahead, he diligently scanned left to right and up and down. The first sign that they were headed in the right direction came in the form of friendly ships in the water below. Fourteen destroyers, heading full steam ahead in the same direction they were flying.

Troeger took advantage of the opportunity to do an initial calibration of his bomb sight, though he was extra careful to make sure it was safed. The sight was a clockwork contraption that could control the plane with an autopilot, adjust for airspeed and crosswinds, and even release the bomb without any further input once he'd set a target. It was fussy and complicated compared to the simple devices he had initially been trained on, but he couldn't argue with the results.

The destroyers slipped away out of sight below, and Troeger turned his attention to the gun in front of him. If he had to use it on this mission then it meant that something had gone badly wrong, but that was no reason to be sloppy. He confirmed again what he had already checked before takeoff and satisfied himself that he wouldn't have a problem firing at any target that presented itself.

The first he knew that they had reached the enemy was when four fighters peeled out from the group leading the way. A moment later he saw the flickering lights of rocket engines trailing lines of smoke as the battle with what must have been the Frankish air patrol kicked off. At least two of the missiles exploded. Troeger winced, remembering the video he had seen describing the missile's effects. He didn't think those fighters would be a problem.

He turned his attention to his bomb sight. In addition to the view straight down, it also had a telescopic lens aiming out ahead of the aircraft. He used that to peek ahead and let out an involuntary whistle.

"That's their whole damn fleet," he said, before pulling himself away from the bomb sight to address Fieser. "We'll take the flattop."

He turned back to the bomb sight and listened with one ear as Fieser relayed the direction. Their group of twelve bombers had been divided into four chains of three. Each chain would focus on one target, one after the other. Troeger's performance on the training ground had earned him the place of chain one, bomber one, and first pick of target. Once he'd confirmed that the carrier were present, it was an easy choice.

Part of it was because it was the easiest ship to pick out. The mission briefing had claimed that the Francois Navy was keeping the bulk of their fleet together near the center of the blockade, ostensibly out of fear of defeat in detail. The actual blockading was being carried out by a mixture of airplanes and destroyers, with the main body of the fleet poised to beat back any moves made by the Germanian Navy.

Even with less than a year under his belt, Troeger knew to be skeptical of military intelligence, but they'd nailed their prediction this time. In addition to the aircraft carrier, there were at least six battleships down there and maybe thirty other ships, a mix of destroyers and cruisers. It was enough firepower to make him feel nervous, even five thousand meters up in the air.

"Starting the bombing run," Alspach said, bringing them more or less on a course to pass over the aircraft carrier.

"Starting the bombing run," Troeger echoed, activating the bomb sight. The autopilot allowed for finer adjustments of their flight path compared to trying to relay verbal directions to the pilot.

The first thing to do was to designate the aircraft carrier as the target. Once that was locked in, he watched as the ship drifted out of the crosshairs. This was not just because the ship was moving, but also the action of the bomb sight demonstrating that not every variable had yet been accounted for.

He fiddled with the controls to put the carrier back in the center of the crosshairs. He felt the plane shift around him in response. The carrier drifted out of the center again, slower this time. He adjusted the controls until it was steady. The rest of the world gradually faded away. There was nothing but his target, a set of crosshairs, and the controls he had to use to bring them together.

He couldn't have said how many times he adjusted the bomb sight before he heard a great thunk as Fritz was released from their bomber to begin his journey.

Alspach knew what to do. He didn't hesitate to take back control of the aircraft and pull them back into a steep climb. No matter how many times they did it in training, Troeger still felt a little unsettled at the feeling of his stomach being left a thousand meters below.

He suppressed the tinge of nausea with the aid of experience and kept his focus on the bomb sight. With the aiming correction disengaged, it gave him a gyroscopically stabilized view of the sea beneath them. Alspach had done his job well. They were passing right over the carrier. The technicians had done their job well, too, as a bright purple dot appeared beneath them, steadily closing in on the ship below.

"I see it!" Troeger announced.

The air force had reached deep into its bag of tricks for this mission. Each chain of bombers had seen its bombs outfitted with specially treated flares that would burn with different colors. Purple, red, orange, and green. There would be no confusion as to which bomb was which.

Troeger shifted his hands over to the joystick that controlled the flight of the bomb. Fritz was looking to miss to the left. He clicked the stick over to the right, and the dot below him shifted right. For a moment, Troeger almost felt he could see the long chain of people stretching out behind him, from the scientist who had designed the guided bomb to the scouts who tracked the enemy fleet to the generals who had planned out this battle to the men sitting beside him in the plane. All working together to deliver this bomb to this target in this moment.

As long as he did his part.

The carrier was moving a bit quicker than he'd expected. He clicked the joystick down, sending Fritz out to lead the target a bit more.

The controls of the guided bomb were simple. In principle, moving a dot so that it was on top of a target was also simple. In practice, the trickiest part was to judge how long it would take Fritz to reach the ground. Troeger had developed a pretty decent gut feeling, but he still dreaded the thought of leading off the whole attack by dropping a bomb in front of or behind his target.

He clicked the stick right twice, then down. The carrier had gone into a turn. The dot was still a little ways in front, but Troeger felt good about it.

It almost looked like the carrier was running to catch Fritz before he could hit the water. The dot held in place as the ship slid underneath until suddenly the dot disappeared. A moment later a great cloud of black smoke billowed up from the target.

"Hit!" Troeger called out.

Alspach responded immediately, pouring on the power and banking into a sharp turn. Troeger felt better to be off their predictable course, even if all of the Frankish anti-aircraft fire had looked to be exploding beneath them.

"Ha! I knew it! Good job, Carl!" Fieser said.

"Calm down and do your job," Alspach chided him, "even without a place to land their fighters can come after us."

"They're going to be busy," Fieser grumbled, but he turned his attention back to scanning the sky behind them.

"It only takes one asshole," Alspach said, before glancing over at Carl. "Nice work, Troeger."

"Thanks," he said, looking over at the pilot.

With his job as a bombardier over, Troeger was back on lookout duty. Thankfully, the enemy fighters did appear to be otherwise occupied. The only movement that caught his eye came as they flew past one of the other bombers. Its bomb bay doors opened up and a whole stream of mages came tumbling out into mid air. He couldn't help but stare at the sight.

Alspach followed his gaze. "They're crazy bastards. I'm glad they're on our side."

Troeger nodded. The next phase of the plan called for mages, dive bombers, and fighter planes to all work together at close range. Part of him yearned for the excitement, but another part of him was starting to appreciate the privilege of doing his work five kilometers in the air.

ooOoo

 _March 28, 1941_

Ian Flemons took the last drag from his cigarette, then used it to get the next one started. He looked down to make extra sure he stubbed out the butt in an ashtray rather than his coffee cup. Normally he wouldn't have to worry about that kind of thing, but normally he was operating on more than an hour of sleep.

A ship of the Francois Republic's navy had shown up in Albish waters the previous day, packed to the gills with aerial mages and happy to share all the information they had so long as they didn't have to fight the Devil any longer. The awkward politics of offering asylum to the troops of a friendly nation would be somebody else's problem. The task of gathering and analyzing the proffered information as quickly as possible was his.

In a way, it was flattering to be tapped for such an important assignment. It was stressful work, though, and with each project like this Flemons could feel his dream of securing a posting to the Caribbean drifting just a little further out of reach.

He took a sip from his coffee as he surveyed the room. He welcomed the scalding heat as it gave him something to focus on other than the sheer quantity of people gathered around who could ruin his career with a word. Flemons wasn't given to stage fright, but even so he could feel some butterflies in his stomach. If he cocked this up, forget about the Caribbean, he'd be lucky not to be posted to the Falklands to count penguins.

The room itself was quite impressive. The dominating feature was an enormous map of the southern region of the North Sea that took up most of the sunken area in the center of the room. The map was large enough to require a separate attendant to be stationed in each cardinal direction to push units about. A cluster of thirty-eight ship models on the edge of the Germanian bight, two hundred miles north of Amstreldam, depicted the state of forces as of yesterday morning.

Flemons himself was at the front of the room, on a level with the audience, standing behind a podium and in front of a projection screen. Using magic during an informational briefing was considered somewhat gauche, which meant that he had spent several tedious hours after he finished his analysis assembling slides for rush development. He could only hope that they had all made it into the projector in the proper order.

The raised seating that circled the room was occupied by, as far as Flemons could tell, whomever had the political pull to obtain an invitation. He'd known that the Royal Navy employed a great many admirals, but he'd never seen so many of them gathered in one place before. Not to mention the cluster of men in suits surrounding a figure that he had only ever seen in newsreels.

Churbull noticed his scrutiny and favored him with a friendly smile. "Oh, don't mind me. It's such a mess on the continent right now that I couldn't resist the chance to hear some straight answers."

That confusing mess was precisely the reason that so many august personages were in attendance. Thanks to the chill in their relation with the Francois Republic, there had been no permission granted for Albish observers to spectate the beginning of the war. The less friendly attempts to gather information had turned up a mixed bag. One report would claim that the Francois army was one battle away from winning the whole war, the next would state that the Devil herself was burning the country to the ground on her way to Parisee. It was enough to make Flemons wonder if the Franks themselves had any idea how the war was progressing.

Now that the Prime Minister had spoken, it was time for him to begin. Flemons set down his coffee and gestured to the young lady running the slide projector. A moment later the first slide appeared on the screen behind him, detailing the balance of forces. For the Francois Republic: five battleships, an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and twenty two destroyers. For Germania, one aircraft carrier and fourteen destroyers. By displacement, it was roughly three hundred thousand tons against fifty thousand.

He took a long drag from his cigarette. Best to give the audience a moment to read the slide before he began. Nerves settled, he exhaled.

"Yesterday was the worst day for the Francois Republic's navy since Trafalgar," Flemons said. Strictly the numbers, it was probably the worst day ever. "I can speak with some confidence as to what transpired, but I am afraid I can only speculate as to what Admiral Duquesne was thinking."

Their little ship of refugees contained a great many mages with a great many recordings of what had transpired, which made discerning the facts of the matter a simple matter of diligent effort. Unfortunately, nobody on the ship had been on the bridge of the Frankish flagship. They had a record of the orders given, but no explanation as to why.

"At 8:45 in the morning, a pilot on close air patrol reported a small fleet of Germanian destroyers approaching from the southeast," Flemons said. He gestured, and the southern map attendant pushed fourteen figurines bearing the Germanian flag into place. "The order was given to maintain their present heading and speed. Over the next hour, the destroyers closed to within fifty miles of the fleet."

The attendant dutifully moved the figurines closer to the fleet. Flemons signaled the projectionist, and the data slide was replaced by a photograph of an explosion devastating an airplane in mid air. The slide was the result of magnifying a still frame of a recording taken from some distance away, blurring the details, but it was still straightforward enough to make out what was happening.

"The initial attack came through the air. Seen here is the rumored Germanian unrotated projectile," Flemons said. "It seems quite effective, although given the numerical disparity the choice of weapon hardly mattered. Germanian forces counted some thirty six fighters and fourteen bombers. They were up against four fighters, the remaining Frankish airplanes either parked on the Béarn or scattered about to enforce the blockade."

"With the sky cleared, the bombers could go to work," Flemons said. "Twelve bombs were dropped, of which nine hit their target."

"That's good work."

Flemons wasn't sure who had spoken, but as they no doubt outranked him he took the interruption in stride. "Impossibly good. Attacking a moving ship from twenty thousand feet, just one hit out of twelve would be fortunate."

Even the bomb sight manufacturers wouldn't claim a seventy five percent hit rate. They had to keep their exaggerations plausible in order to close a sale.

"The bombs had to have been guided somehow," Flemons continued. "Nobody's made a guidance spell work on anything larger than a bullet without taking the mage along for the ride, but if anybody has cracked it, well..."

He cleared his throat and looked down at his notes. Every man in this room would have his own speculations, and most of them had far more experience in naval warfare than he did. He intended to stick to the facts.

"At this point, the Béarn was a total loss. Jean Bart and Parisee were badly damaged, but perhaps salvageable," Flemons said. "Dunkerque had taken one hit and lost all power, and would have needed to be towed back to port."

He paused for a moment to let the damage report sink in. All told, capital ships totaling over a hundred thousand tons in displacement had been crippled or destroyed in a single bombing run.

"The next phase of the attack began with the last two bombers dropping twenty mages each into the battle," Flemons continued. "The mages joined up with the fighters and two newly arrived wings of dive bombers to attack the two undamaged battleships."

He signaled the advance to the next slide. He was rather proud of it, as it had taken quite a late night screaming fit to convince the technician to combine four photographs into one. The top left showed a rocket lancing out from beneath a fighter plane. The top right caught a team of mages as they peppered their target with explosive spells. The bottom left showed a dive bomber pulling up shortly after releasing its bomb, while the bottom right showed a departing dive bomber disintegrating under anti-aircraft fire.

"It was at this point that the Germanians suffered their only casualties, losing three dive bombers and one fighter plane," Flemons said. "In exchange, the Strasbourg and Richelieu were both badly battered. The Strasbourg would have needed help just to get back to port, and both would have needed months of repairs."

He paused again, double checking his notes. "I should add that the unrotated projectiles did not do significant damage to either ship, but were effective in suppressing anti-aircraft fire, as were the aerial mages."

"At this point the Germanian air force headed for home, but the mages were just starting their work," Flemons continued. "To begin with, their attack on the battleships culminated with a boarding action."

"A boarding action?"

"Someone ring Jackie and see if he kept his old training manuals."

Flemons ignored the byplay. He'd had an extra few hours to get over the shock of seeing a boarding party do their work in the twentieth century. Once you set aside the absurdity of the idea, the danger of mages in close combat made sobering food for thought. The Frankish sailors hadn't been able to do much more than fort up inside and prepare for a siege, despite having a handful of marine mages on board.

He again advanced to the next slide. This photograph showed a platoon of Germanian mages hovering over a quadruple gun turret, each in various stages of the process of fishing something out of the backpack they were wearing.

"They used what appear to be shaped charges to disable the primary armaments," Flemons said, "as well as directing explosive spells at anything that looked a likely target."

Even Germanian mages couldn't do much against a warship's heavy armor. However, there were an awful lot of things on a modern warship that weren't behind heavy armor.

"Rather than attempt to seize a ship outright, the mages moved on once the damage was done. They then proceeded to gather together and proceed from ship to ship," he continued. "The low altitude made firing on them extremely difficult. Over two battalions of Frankish mages were present at the battle, but they were scattered throughout the fleet. The result was a great deal of superficial damage and overall chaos."

He looked around the room and saw to his satisfaction that the sense of amusement had largely disappeared. Instead he could see concern starting to spread as his audience considered how they would fare when faced with a heavy battalion of mages running amok at close range.

"The Frankish formation became more compressed throughout the battle in an attempt to provide mutual support and to concentrate anti-aircraft fire," Flemons said. "They may have been able to drive off the mages eventually, but it was at this point that the Germanian destroyers entered the fray."

He waited a moment for the attendants down below to push the ships around in accordance with their earlier directions. The Frankish ships were pushed closer together, while the Germanians split up. Six destroyers approached from the south, while four each attacked from the south east and north east. Even with all the damage that had already been done, the Germanians would have been severe underdogs in the coming fight, if not for the last trick up their sleeve.

The next slide came from a recording that had actually been taken later in the battle by a mage fleeing a sinking ship. It provided the cleanest view that Flemons had been able to find of a Germanian destroyer on an attack run. For the slide, Flemons had captured a photograph of the moment after a torpedo had been fired but before it splashed into the water.

"At thirty feet long, this torpedo can make forty five to fifty five knots and is deadly from at least eight miles out," Flemons said. "It leaves less of a bubble trail than you might expect, and it appears to be on a magnetic detonator."

Out of all the new information, this tidbit was the most galling. Before Degurechaff, he would have had the design document to this torpedo on his desk before it had even been prototyped. Now, with his sources going missing or clamming up almost as soon as he could develop them, he had to wait for the weapon to be deployed in battle before he could even begin to analyze it.

"The Germanians made a series of attacks from five to eight miles away," he continued. "Under the circumstances, the Frankish gunnery was understandably poor, and, well."

The next slide was the last photograph he'd extracted, looking back over the rail of a Frankish destroyer at what had once been a fleet. Broken ships, all in various stages of sinking into the water, filled the screen.

"The Volta had been detached to blockade duty. It began steaming towards the battle as soon as it began, and turned to run once it was clear that she would be no help," Flemons said. "The marine mages flocked to the last visible ship still afloat. The Germanians began rescue operations rather than pursue."

He gestured for the projectionist to advance to the final slide. This was a duplicate of the original slide comparing the number of ships available for each side, except that the ships that had been lost were marked with an x, while the ships whose fates were unknown were marked with a question mark. It was a sobering sight.

"In the last war a lot of aerial mages learned their business by cribbing from Degurechaff's notes," Flemons said. "It seems school is back in session. We're fortunate that the Francois Republic has footed the bill for our tuition."

"Degurechaff's notes? Surely some other bright sparks must exist in that country."

Flemons looked up to see that the question had come from Admiral Godsby. He felt a brief flash of trepidation as he realized that he had overstepped his bounds. He gave Godsby a grateful nod. By jumping in front of the question, his boss had given him a chance to defend his point without having to contradict somebody who would hold a grudge.

"I daresay it's her vision being put into place. If I may?" Flemons asked, holding up his computation orb. Receiving a nod, he continued. "This is from a conversation in October, 1939."

He pulled up the recording that he had reviewed many times before. Degurechaff's familiar face appeared next to the projection screen.

"Naturally, victory at sea begins in the air."

He kept the recording playing as she disdained the battleship before revealing what still looked to him to be genuine ignorance of the Jeune École. He had never been able to figure out just how thoroughly she had been toying with him that day in Hambrück.

"The age of great naval gun battles is drawing to a close. But you're right, it's not over yet."

He stopped the recording. Words that had once seemed like pie in the sky futurism took on a rather ominous cast when juxtaposed against a list of the carnage wrought the previous day.

The room was silent for a moment before Churbull let out a great bark of laughter. "She just told us what she was going to do! And they say the woman has no sense of humor."

Flemons noticed that his cigarette had burnt itself out. He dropped it in the ashtray and fished out the next one. The rest of this conversation was going to be above his pay grade.

"Now, Dudley," Churbull began, turning to address the First Sea Lord, "could we have done this?"

"Could we have sunk the Frankish fleet? Certainly," Admiral Rogers began. "Could we have achieved the same victory with the same resources? Not as such, no. We're working on our own implementation of the technologies on display, but they haven't yet reached maturity."

The impressive thing about the battle, in Flemons's opinion, didn't come from any particular wonder weapon but rather from the level of coordination and cooperation on display. That was what had compounded each incremental advantage until the result became so lopsided. He could only imagine how much time Degurechaff had spent riding herd on her admirals in order to convince them to adopt such novel tactics. Of course, he knew better than to speak up when he was faced with such a wonderful opportunity to keep his mouth shut.

"Hmm," Churbull said, tapping his cigar against an ashtray. "Are they any threat to us?"

"No," Admiral Rogers said, not hesitating in the least. "An opponent to be respected, certainly, but yesterday's battle involved substantially their entire navy."

"I see," Churbull said, then sighed. "I must admit, what truly worries me is this: if this is happening at sea, how badly have they cocked up the war on the ground?"

ooOoo

 _AN2: This campaign is going to spawn a lot of alt-history fiction._

 _AN3: Also, every time I do an Albish PoV I slip into British spelling. I think I caught everything on re-reading._


End file.
